This paper explores the role of model and vintage combination in forecasting, with a novel approach that exploits the information contained in the revision history of a given variable. We analyse the forecast performance of eleven widely used models to predict inflation and GDP growth, in the...

This paper explores the role that inflation forecasts play in the uncertainty surrounding the estimated effects of alternative monetary rules on unemployment dynamics in the euro area and the US. We use the inflation forecasts of 8 competing models in a standard Bayesian VAR to analyse the size...

This paper explores the role that the imperfect knowledge of the structure of the economy plays in the uncertainty surrounding the effects of rule-based monetary policy on unemployment dynamics in the euro area and the US. We employ a Bayesian model averaging procedure on a wide range of models...

We investigate the similarities of macroeconomic fluctuations in the Mediterranean basin and their convergence. A model with three indicators, covering the West, the East and the MENA portions of the Mediterranean, characterizes well the historical experience since the early 1980. Convergence...

JEL Classification: C11, C15, F41, F42, G15

This paper describes a methodology to estimate the coefficients, to test specification hypotheses and to conduct policy exercises in multi-country VAR models with cross unit interdependencies, unit specific dynamics and time variations in the coefficients. The framework of analysis is Bayesian:...

This paper shows that inflation in industrialized countries is largely a global phenomenon. First, inflations of (22) OECD countries have a common factor that alone account for nearly 70% of their variance. This large variance share that is associated to Global Inflation is not only due to the...

Any empirical analysis of the credit channel faces a key identification challenge: changes in credit supply and demand are difficult to disentangle. To address this issue, we use the detailed answers from the US and the confidential and unique Euro area bank lending surveys. Embedding this...

This paper analyses the transmission of financial shocks to the macroeconomy. The role of macro-financial linkages is investigated from an empirical perspective for the euro area as a whole, for individual euro area member countries and for other EU and OECD countries. The following key economic...

The paper presents the Dutch country block of the ESCB Multi-Country Model (MCM) for the euro area. We show how a theoretical model is translated into an econometric specification and how this specification is in turn estimated and used in the projection exercises of the E(S)CB. The dynamic...