We study a newly constructed panel data set of relative prices of a large number of consumer goods among 31 European countries. We find that there is a substantial and nondiminishing deviation from PPP at all levels of aggregation, even among euro zone members. However, real exchange rates are...

Key macroeconomic variables such as GDP and investment typically display a V-shaped pattern during major emerging market crises. A notable exception to that pattern is intermediated credit, which follows an L-shaped trajectory instead: it declines at first in lockstep with economic activity, but...

We distinguish between three different ways of using real-time data to estimate forecasting equations and argue that the most frequently used approach should generally be avoided. The point is illustrated with a model that uses monthly observations of industrial production, employment, and...

The authors forecast current-quarter real GDP growth using monthly data that would have been available to an analyst in real time. They demonstrate that using real-time data is of major importance both when estimating GDP forecasting models and when evaluating their performance. Moreover, the...

We build from (mainly) publicly available national sources a database of (nominal and real) house prices—complemented with data on private disposable income (PDI)—for 19 advanced countries at a quarterly frequency, starting in the first quarter of 1975. We select a house price index for each...

Remarks before the Bolsa Mexicana de Valores, Mexico City, February 29, 2012 ; "Mexico’s rapid recovery in all dimensions of its macroeconomy and financial sector is proof positive that the gain from reform is worth the pain. I would go so far as to say there are lessons to be learned here,...

Remarks before the National Association for Business Economics, Dallas, Texas, September 12, 2011 ; "It is incumbent on the Fed and other bank regulators to reduce the regulatory burdens that are inhibiting indeed, overwhelming community bankers whose business it is to lend to creditworthy small...

The aggregate impact of decisions made at the level of the individual firm has recently attracted a lot of attention in both the macro and trade literatures. We adapt the benchmark international real business cycle model to a game-theoretic environment to add a channel for the strategic...