Using U.S. data from 1929 to 2013, we show that elevated credit-market sentiment in year t-2 is associated with a decline in economic activity in years t through t+2. Underlying this result is the existence of predictable mean reversion in credit-market conditions. That is, when our sentiment...

The paper draws lessons from the experience of the past year for the conduct of central banks in the pursuit of macroeconomic and financial stability. Macroeconomic stability is defined as either price stability or as price stability and sustainable output or employment growth. Financial...

The recent crisis underlined that proper estimation of distress-dependence amongst banks in a global system is essential for financial stability assessment. We present a set of banking stability measures embedding banks’ linear (correlation) and nonlinear distress-dependence, and their changes...

The 2007-2009 recession is characterized by: a large drop in employment, an unprecedented decline in firm entry, and a slow recovery. Using confidential firm-level data, I show that financial constraints reduced employment growth in small relative to large firms by 4.8 to 10.5 percentage points....

Firms with limited internal liquidity significantly increased prices in 2008, while their liquidity unconstrained counterparts slashed prices. Differences in the firms' price-setting behavior were concentrated in sectors likely characterized by customer markets. We develop a model, in which...

We construct a state space model for measuring real economic activity in real time (e.g., minute by minute) using a variety of stock and flow data, observed at mixed frequencies. Our data set comprises macroeconomic and financial variables: GDP, IP, unemployment, stock and bond market data, and...

On the one hand, recently a number of theoretical models have highlighted the role of credit market frictions in propagating and amplifying macroeconomic shocks. On the other hand, it still seems an open question whether this role is quantitatively significant. Our paper tries to fill this gap....

We argue that the fiscal policies adopted early in World War I by the U.K. were responsible for its poor economic performance during the interwar period. In September 1915, the U.K. embarked on a set of non-tax-smoothing policies collectively known as the McKenna rule. The key dictum of the...