We consider the estimation of a large number of GARCH models, say of the order of several hundreds. Especially in the multivariate case, the number of parameters is extremely large. To reduce this number and render estimation feasible, we regroup the series in a small number of clusters. Within...

Recent empirical evidence suggests that the weekend and holiday calendar effects are much stronger and statistically significant in volatility as opposed to expected returns. This paper seeks an explanation for this empirical finding by undertaking a comprehensive investigation of the predictive...

In this paper, we formalize the idea of human capital as the ability to follow and enforce the rules necessary for orderly conduct of economic transactions. People in the US and other developed countries stand in lines while waiting for the bus, etc., while in many developing countries lines...

The inability of a wide array of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models to generate fluctuations that resemble actual business cycles has lead to the use of habit formation in consumption. For example, habit formation has been shown to help explain the negative response of labour...

In this paper we provide an explicit characterization of the escape dynamics for the Phellps problem of government controlling inflation with adaptive learning of the approximate Phillips curve, alternative to the one considered by Cho, Williams and Sargent (2002) (CWS in sequel). Our approach...

Most Latin American countries experienced their last peak in output per capita relative to the United States’ between 1971 and 1982. Prior to this peak per capita output was rapidly catching up to the developed world. Twenty years after the peak the average country’s relative per...

In this paper, we set out the JEM (Japanese Economic Model), a large macroeconomic model of the Japanese Economy. Although the JEM is a theoretical model designed with a view to overcoming the Lucas (1976) critique of traditional large macroeconomic models, it can also be used for both...

This paper analyzes the implications of heterogeneity in price setting for both price and inflation inertia. Standard models based on Taylor- or Calvo-style price setting usually assume ex-ante identical firms, while Calvo's approach implies only ex-post heterogeneity. While it is known that...

The purpose of this paper is to examine whether the stock wealth effect of consumption exhibits structural change(s) or behaves asymmetrically over business cycles. We first perform a general test of linearity for the behavior of aggregate consumption in response to changes in stock wealth based...

Empirical studies of economic growth across countries are abundant and rich in conclusions, some of them widely accepted. This is not the case, however, with the empirics of business cycles. Particularly, there exists little evidence explaining why some countries take more time than others...