Understanding and quantifying the determinants of the number of sectors or firms exporting in a given country is of relevance for the assessment of trade policies. Estimation of models for the number of exporting sectors, however, poses a challenge because the dependent variable has both a lower...

The goal of the present paper is to investigate not only the dynamics of the Greek public debt, but also what are the appropriate measures required for achieving fiscal consolidation. The empirical estimation is carried out using a macroeconomic dataset spanning the period 1980-2008 and both the...

The goal of the present paper is to investigate not only the dynamics of the Greek public debt, but also what are the appropriate measures required for achieving fiscal consolidation. The empirical estimation is carried out using a macroeconomic dataset spanning the period 1980-2008 and both the...

This paper introduces a new model for portfolio credit risk incorporating default and spread widening in a simple and consistent framework. Credit spreads are modelled by geometric Brownian motions with a dependence structure powered by a t-copula. Their joint evolution drives the spreads...

This paper suggests overcoming some limitations of traditional inequality decomposition methods by developing a combination of Burtless (1999) and DiNardo et al. (1996), two different microsimulation methods for decomposing inequality. By using this combination it is possible to take into...

Most US house price models break down in the mid-2000's, due to the omission of exogenous changes in mortgage credit supply (associated with the sub-prime mortgage boom) from house price-to-rent ratio and inverted housing demand models. Previous models lack data on credit constraints facing...

In this paper we describe a procedure for implementing zero restrictions within the context of a sign restrictions identification scheme for VARs. The procedure introduces an additional step into the algorithm outlined in Fry and Pagan (2011) and Rubio-Ramirez et al (2006) for implementing sign...

This paper presents new models for aggregate UK data on mortgage possessions (foreclosures) and mortgage arrears (payment delinquencies). The innovations include the treatment of difficult to observe variations in loan quality and shifts in forbearance policy by lenders, by common latent...

The U.S. house price boom has been linked to an unsustainable easing of mortgage credit standards. However, standard time series models of US house prices omit credit constraints and perform poorly in the 2000’s. We incorporate data on credit constraints for first time buyers into a model of...

Housing and pension wealth are shown to be important determinants of personal sector consumption and retirement behaviour in the UK. Housing and state pension wealth have a positive effect on consumption, while private pension wealth promotes greater savings. Greater private defined benefit...