This paper uses a Merton-type estimate of the probability of default (PoD) for the main banks in a sample of Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development and middle-income countries as a proxy for the fragility of their banking systems. Based on theory and stylized facts, the paper...

The paper assesses estimates of term structure models for the United States. To this end, this paper first describes the mathematics underlying two types of term structure models, namely the Nelson-Siegel and Cox, Ingersoll and Ross family of models, and the estimation techniques. It then...

This paper discusses the estimation of models of the term structure of interest rates. After reviewing the term structure models, specifically the Nelson-Siegel Model and Affine Term- Structure Model, this paper estimates the terms structure of Treasury bond yields for the United States with...

This paper reviews recent advances in the specification and estimation of Bayesian Vector Autoregressive models (BVARs). After describing the Bayesian principle of estimation, we first present the methodology originally developed by Litterman (1986) and Doan et al. (1984) and review alternative...

The real effective exchange rate is an aggregation of several bilateral real exchange rates with respect to other countries. The aggregation is usually done under the assumption of constant elasticity of substitution (CES) between products from different countries. We investigate the validity of...

Many estimates of early-warning-system (EWS) models of currency crisis have reported incorrect standard errors because of serial correlation in the context of panel probit regressions. This paper documents the magnitude of the problem, proposes and tests a solution, and applies it to previously...

This paper estimates an empirical nonstationary panel regression model that tests long-run consumption risk sharing across a sample of OECD and emerging market (EM) countries. This is in contrast to the existing literature on consumption risk sharing, which is mainly about risks at business...

We study the performance of the four Western Hemisphere trading blocs during the period 1978-2001. For the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA), trade integration outweighed trade diversion; for MERCOSUR, increased integration and trade diversion went hand in hand; for the Central American...

We provide empirical evidence that deviations from uncovered interest rate parity (UIP) display significant nonlinearities, consistent with theories based on transaction costs or limits to speculation. This evidence suggests that the forward bias documented in the literature may be less...

This paper studies asymptotically the bias of the fixed effect (FE) estimator induced by cross-section heterogeneity in the slope parameters of stationary vector autoregressions (VARs). The paper also compares the FE, the mean group estimator (MG), and a simple instrumental variable alternative...