Similarities between the Great Depression and the Great Recession are documented with respect to the behavior of financial markets. A Great Depression regime is identified by using a Markov-switching VAR. The probability of this regime has remained close to zero for many decades, but spiked for...

I develop a toolbox to analyze the properties of multivariate Markov-switching models. I first derive analytical formulas for the evolution of first and second moments, taking into account the possibility of regime changes. The formulas are then used to characterize the evolution of expectations...

This paper explores the effects of the US business cycle on US stock market returns through an analysis of the equity risk premium. We propose a new methodology based on the SDF approach to asset pricing that allows us to uncover the different effects of aggregate demand and supply shocks. We...

Surprisingly there are very few estimates of the equity risk premium period-by-period that satisfy a no-arbitrage condition, despite the vast literature on the subject. This is mainly due to the difficulties of estimation. Using the stochastic discount factor (SDF) model based on observable...

This paper provides an overview of the analysis of the term structure of interest rates with a special emphasis on recent developments at the intersection of macroeconomics and finance. The topic is important to investors and also to policymakers, who wish to extract macroeconomic expectations...

This paper examines the relationship between fiscal policy and the current account, drawing on a larger country sample than in previous studies and using panel regressions, vector auto-regressions, and an analysis of large fiscal and external adjustments. On average, a strengthening in the...

This paper describes how we constructed a real-time database for the euro area covering more than 200 series regularly published in the European Central Bank Monthly Bulletin, as made available ahead of publication to the Governing Council members before their first meeting of the month. We...

The term now-casting is a contraction for now and forecasting and has been used for a long-time in meteorology and recently also in economics In this paper we survey recent developments on economic now-casting with special focus on those models that formalize key features of how market...

This paper presents a rational expectations model of optimal executive compensation in a setting where managers are in a position to manipulate short-term stock prices, and managers' propensity to manipulate is uncertain. Stock-based incentives elicit not only productive effort, but also costly...