From time to time, economies undergo far-reaching structural changes. In this paper we investigate the consequences of structural breaks in the factor loadings for the specification and estimation of factor models based on principal components and suggest test procedures for structural breaks....

Factor models can cope with many variables without running into scarce degrees of freedom problems often faced in a regression-based analysis. In this article we review recent work on dynamic factor models that have become popular in macroeconomic policy analysis and forecasting. By means of an...

The interrelationship between financial constraints and firm activity is a hotly debated issue. The way firms cope with financial constraints is fundamental to the analysis of monetary transmission, of financial stability and of growth and development. The CBI Industrial Trends Survey contains...

This paper considers Bayesian regression with normal and doubleexponential priors as forecasting methods based on large panels of time series. We show that, empirically, these forecasts are highly correlated with principal component forecasts and that they perform equally well for a wide range...

We examine the global dimension of inflation in 24 OECD countries between 1980 and 2007 in a traditional Phillips curve framework. We decompose output gaps and changes in unit labor costs into common (or global) and idiosyncratic components using a factor analysis and introduce these components...

This paper investigates economic convergence in real income per capita between 27 European Union countries. We employ a non-linear latent factor framework to study transitional behavior among economies between 1970 and 2010. Our results offer important insights on the economic catch-up exhibited...