This paper analyzes the duration of house price upturns and downturns in the last 40 years for 19 OECD countries. I provide two sets of results, one pertaining to the average length and the other to the length distribution. On average, upturns are longer than downturns, but the difference...

This paper outlines a way to estimate transition matrices for use in credit risk modeling with a decades-old methodology that uses aggregate proportions data. This methodology is ideal for credit-risk applications where there is a paucity of data on changes in credit quality, especially at an...

This paper provides a numerical analysis of an intertemporal equilibrium model of a small open, barter economy that is subject to random shocks affecting endowments, the terms of trade, and the real interest rate. Equilibrium stochastic processes for macroeconomic aggregates are computed and...

This paper analyzes the evolution of interregional income inequality during transition in Russia. The transition matrix approach reveals that between 1991 and 1997 income mobility tended toward a highly uneven long-term distribution with the majority of regions at low income levels and a...

We apply a hidden Markov model of the term structure to modeling the Brazilian swap rate curve. We examine the model's characteristics and its performance in describing the cross-sectional and time-series dynamics of the term structure. Two regimes are identified, a high level and a high...

Uncertainty about the riskiness of new financial products was an important factor behind the U.S. credit crisis. We show that a boom-bust cycle in debt, asset prices and consumption characterizes the equilibrium dynamics of a model with a collateral constraint in which agents learn "by...

Bahrain's financial sector development strategy succeeded in building a leading regional banking center, which has become one of the main engines of growth and sources of employment. Although the simulations conducted in the paper suggest that the banking sector in Bahrain continues to occupy a...

Cost-efficiency, scale efficiency, and productivity change are estimated by data envelopment analysis; and cost-efficiency is regressed on explanatory variables. No evidence is found for average productivity responding to deregulation over the period studied. State-owned banks are found to be...

This paper studies the effects of property-titling on labor supply. The role of legal ownership security is isolated by comparing the effect that being part of, or excluded from, a land title program in a unique quasi-experiment in two similar communities in the Brazilian city of Osasco. Our...