Accurate prediction of the frequency of extreme events is of primary importance in many financialapplications such as Value-at-Risk (VaR) analysis. We propose a semi-parametric method for VaRevaluation. The largest risks are modelled parametrically, while smaller risks are captured by the...

This paper examines the role of uncertainty shocks in a one-sector, representative-agent dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model. When prices are flexible, uncertainty shocks are not capable of producing business-cycle comovements among key macro variables. With countercyclical markups...

Unobserved components time series models decompose a time series into a trend, a season, a cycle, an irregular disturbance, and possibly other components. These models have been successfully applied to many economic time series. The standard assumption of a linear model, often appropriate after...

In this paper we investigate whether the dynamic properties of the U.S. business cycle have changed in the last fifty years. For this purpose we develop a flexible business cycle indicator that is constructed from a moderate set of macroeconomic time series. The coincident economic indicator is...

Various economic theories are available to explain the existence of credit and default cycles. There remains empirical ambiguity, however, as to whether or these cycles coincide. Recent papers_new suggest by their empirical research set-up that they do, or at least that defaults and credit...