This paper investigates why the slope of the yield curve predicts future economic activity in Germany and the United States. A structural VAR is used to identify aggregate supply, aggregate demand, monetary policy and inflation scare shocks and to analyze their effects on the real, nominal and...

In the identified VAR literature the role of the exchange rate in measuring monetary policy shocks has often been neglected. However, many open economies find it useful to target the exchange rate. In such a regime exchange rate innovations will better capture domestic monetary policy shocks....