This paper focuses on forecasting quarterly energy prices of commodities, such as oil, gas and coal, using the Global VAR dataset proposed by Mohaddes and Raissi (2018). This dataset includes a number of potentially informative quarterly macroeconomic variables for the 33 largest economies,...

The global financial crisis (2008-09) led to a sharp contraction in both Euro Area (EA) and US real activity, and was followed by a long-lasting slump. However, the post-crisis adjustment in the EA and the US shows striking differences - in particular, the EA slump has been markedly more...

In this paper we present an evaluation of forecasts of a vector of variables of the German economy made by different institutions. Our method permits one to evaluate the forecasts for each year and then if one is interested to combine the years. We use our method to determine an overall winner...

In this paper we propose a new indicator of monthly global real economic activity, named world steel production. We use world steel production, OECD industrial production index and Kilian's rea index to forecast world real GDP, and key commodity prices. We find that world steel production...

In modelling macroeconomic time series, often a monthly indicator of global real economic activity is used. We propose a new indicator, named World steel production, and compare it to other existing indicators, precisely the Kilian's index of global real economic activity and the index of OECD...

We estimate three different models of speculative behaviour using oil price data. There are two major results: (i) The three-regime model of Brooks and Katsaris (2005) and a three-regime variant of van Norden and Schaller (2002) fit the oil price data reasonably well; and (ii) Both models show...

In 2019, President Trump called on the U.S. Federal Reserve to cut interest rates to depreciate the U.S. dollar, which, according to the IMF, is overvalued by between 6 and 12 percent. This paper uses an intertemporal general equilibrium model to explore what would likely happen if the...

World leaders have declared the G20 to be the premier forum for economic cooperation. But as its influence and policy agenda has grown, so too has the need to be able to effectively model the G20 and the implications of its policy agenda. The paper introduces the G-Cubed (G20) model: a...

Productivity growth has flat-lined in most economies despite rapid advances in technology. Economists suggest competing explanations for this paradox. Some argue the current stagnation will persist given deep structural challenges, arguing that recent technological advances are no match for...

Macro models have come under criticism for their ability to understand or predict major economic events such as the global financial crisis and its aftermath. Some of that criticism is warranted; but, in our view, much is not. This paper contributes to the debate over the adequacy of benchmark...