I study the link between house prices, lending standards, and aggregate over-investment in housing. I develop a model of the housing market where the credit market is affected by asymmetric information. Selection is towards less creditworthy borrowers. Asymmetric information coupled with...

We propose a new non-recursive identification scheme for uncertainty shocks, which exploits breaks in the unconditional volatility of macroeconomic variables. Such identification approach allows us to simultaneously address two major questions in the empirical literature on uncertainty: (i) Does...

We employ a parsimonious nonlinear Interacted-VAR to examine whether the real effects of uncertainty shocks are greater when the economy is at the Zero Lower Bound. We find the contractionary effects of uncertainty shocks to be statistically larger when the ZLB is binding, with differences that...

We study the behavior of key macroeconomic variables in the time and frequency domain. For this purpose, we decompose U.S. time series into various frequency components. This allows us to identify a set of stylized facts: GDP growth is largely a high-frequency phenomenon whereby inflation and...

We estimate a novel measure of global financial uncertainty (GFU) with a dynamic factor framework that jointly models global, regional, and country-specific factors. We quantify the impact of GFU shocks on global output with a VAR analysis that achieves self-identifcation via a combination of...

We estimate a three-variate VAR using proxies of global financial uncertainty, the global financial cycle, and world industrial production to simulate the effects of the jump in financial uncertainty observed in correspondence of the Covid-19 outbreak. We predict the cumulative loss in world...

We investigate the role played by systematic monetary policy in tackling the real effects of uncertainty shocks in U.S. recessions and expansions. We model key indicators of the business cycle with a nonlinear VAR that allows for different dynamics in busts and booms. Uncertainty shocks are...

This paper proposes a framework for studying the boom and bust in Finland in the late 1980s and early 1990s. We develop a small open economy DSGE model with balance sheet-constrained firms à la BGG and calibrate it to the Finnish economy. We use the model to simulate three events that are...

Countercyclical country interest rates have been shown to be both a distinctive characteristic and an important driving force of business cycles in emerging market economies. In order to account for this, most business cycle models of emerging market economies have relied on ad hoc and exogenous...

Motivated by the U.S. events of the 2000s, we address whether a too low for too long interest rate policy may generate a boom-bust cycle. We simulate anticipated and unanticipated monetary policies in state-of-the-art DSGE models and in a model with bond financing via a shadow banking system, in...