Since Mandelbrot's seminal work (1963), alpha-stable distributions with infinite variance have been regarded as a more realistic distributional assumption than the normal distribution for some economic variables, especially financial data. After providing a brief survey of theoretical results on...

In this paper, we construct a single composite financial stress indicator (FSI) which aims to predict developments in the real economy in the euro area. Our FSI was shown to perform better than the Euro STOXX 50 volatility index for the recent banking crisis and the euro-area sovereign debt...

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...

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...