Factor models have become useful tools for studying international business cycles. Block factor models [e.g., Kose, Otrok, and Whiteman (2003)] can be especially useful as the zero restrictions on the loadings of some factors may provide some economic interpretation of the factors. These models,...

A large literature studies the information contained in national-level economic indicators, such as financial and aggregate economic activity variables, for forecasting U.S. business cycle phases (expansions and recessions.) In this paper, we investigate whether there is additional information...

This paper constructs several models in which, unlike the standard neoclassical growth model, positive news about future technology generates an increase in current consumption, hours and investment. These models are said to exhibit procyclical news shocks. We find that all models that exhibit...

We explore the influence of city-level business cycle fluctuations on crime in 20 large cities in the United States. Our monthly time series analysis considers seven crimes over an approximately 20-year period: murder, rape, assault, robbery, burglary, larceny, and motor vehicle theft. Short-run...

We investigate the global dynamics of RBC models with production externalities. We confirm that purely local analysis does not tell the full story. With externalities smaller than required for local indeterminacy, local analysis shows the steady state to be a saddle, implying a unique...

This comment discusses Harding and Pagan's (2007) article that advocates modeling the NBER business cycle chronology as the outcome of the two-quarter rule. The comment shows that the two-quarter rule does not fare well as a description of the decision-making of the NBER with real-time data...

This paper shows that incomplete information can be a rich source of sunspots equilibria. This is demonstrated in a standard dynamic general equilibrium model of monopolistic competition … la Dixit-Stiglitz. In the absence of fundamental shocks, the model has a unique certainty (fundamental)...

We model the U.S. business cycle using a dynamic factor model that identifies common factors underlying fluctuations in state-level income and employment growth. We find three such common factors, each of which is associated with a set of factor loadings that indicate the extent to which each...