This paper compares the depth of the Recent Crisis and the Great Depression. We use a new data set to compare the drop in activity in the industrialized countries for seven activity indicators. This is done under the assumption that the Recent Crisis leveled off in mid-2009 for production and...

We analyze the interaction of stock market movements and politics in Germany. In contrast to the empirical evidence available for the U.S., we do not find that German stock market returns tend to be higher during liberal than during conservative governments. Also in contrast to results for the...

The provision of credit has been shown to be eminent for macroeconomic activity.Recent research highlighted that optimism may play a role in the provision of credit through leverage cycles. A decomposition of corporate bond spreads allows the modelling of a propensity-to-lend through an excess...

The paper is a survey of theoretical and empirical approaches applied to analyze the impact of financial system on economic growth. The key issues of the modern theories of the finance-growth nexus are discussed and the theories are classified on the basis of the methodology they rely on. The...

The author suggests the 2008 financial crisis was the culmination of an accelerating process of financial market evolution that is inherently unstable. From his viewpoint markets are not well organized to manage the power financial assets have to generate emotion and their wider effect on human...

A fundamental cause of the global financial crisis was excessive creation of short-term money-like liabilities (quasi-money), notably in shadow banking holdings of sub-prime MBS and other US dollar structured credit instruments and in cross-border flow of capital to the uncompetitive Euro area...

The determinants of default risk of banks in emerging economies have so far received inadequate attention in the literature. This paper seeks to study the determinants of bank asset quality and profitability using panel data techniques and robust data sets for the period between 1997 and 2009....

The interaction between financial markets and the macroeconomy can be strongly affected by changes in credit market regulations. In order to take account of these effects the authors control explicitly for regime shifts in a system of debt equations for Norway using a common, flexible trend. The...

I use a time-varying parameter model in order to study the predictability of monthly real stock returns in Germany over the period 1880–1913. I find that the extent to which returns were predictable underwent significant changes over time. Specifically, predictability of returns, as measured...

We use a Panel Smooth Transition Regression (STR) model to study nonlinearities in the expectation-formation process in the U.S. stock market. To this end, we use data from the Livingston survey to investigate how the importance of regressive and extrapolative expectations fluctuates over time...