We investigate to what extent the business cycles in Europe have become more synchronised since the sixties, using the classical business cycles framework. Four Bry & Boschan-like procedures for dating the turning points are compared. It is found that the cycles across countries have become more...

There are still problems in handling diversity in economics. The general equilibrium model itself lacks determinacy for a generic population of economic agents. In an ourstanding contribution, Jean-Michel Grandmont (1992) argues that increasing behavioural heterogeneity makes aggregate...

This paper compares two alternative theories of Aggregate supply, both with a "New Keynesian Flavor". The first assumes that prices are rigis due to the existence of menu costs of the kind advanced by Mankiw [38] and Akerlof and Yellen [2]. The second derives price stickiness endogenously as one...

Using annual US data for gross domestic product originating by sector between 1947 and 1997 it is shown that a negative long-run relationship between inflation and the markup is present across the sectors as well as in the aggregate. A preliminary explanation based on indutry structure is...

We investigate the dynamics of a cobweb model with heterogeneous beliefs, generalising the example of Brock and Hommes (1997). We examine situations where the agents form expectations by using either perfect foresight, or a form of adaptive expectations with limited memory defined from the last...

In this paper we propose a monthly measure for the euro area Gross Domestic Product (GDP) based on a small scale factor model for mixed frequency data, featuring two factors: the first is driven by hard data, whereas the second captures the contribution of survey variables as coincident...

In this paper we formalize budgetary stabilizers as a set of simple policy rules, and assess their operation in an uncertain environment by performing stochastic simulations in a forward-looking multi-country macroeconomic model, NiGEM, comprising individual blocks for 10 Euroland economies.

This paper evaluates the consequences for monetary policy performance of acquiring more accurate real time data. A forward looking model is set up and calibrated to fit the broad stylized facts of the U.S. economy. Two different assumptions about the information structure of the economy are...

This paper discusses pooling versus model selection for now- and forecasting in the presence of model uncertainty with large, unbalanced datasets. Empirically, unbalanced data is pervasive in economics and typically due to di¤erent sampling frequencies and publication delays. Two model classes...

This paper considers a sticky price model with a cash-in-advance constraint where agents forecast inflation rates by fitting econometric models to data. Agents are uncertain about which model to fit and can choose from a class of models. Only some of the models in this class are consistent with...