We model U.S. post-WWII monthly data with a Smooth Transition VAR model and study the effects of an unanticipated increase in economic policy uncertainty on unemployment in recessions and expansions. We find the response of unemployment to be statistically and economically larger in recessions....

We estimate a nonlinear VAR to quantify the impact of economic policy uncertainty shocks originating in the US on the Canadian unemployment rate in booms and busts. We find strong evidence in favor of asymmetric spillover effects. Unemployment in Canada is shown to react to uncertainty shocks in...

We develop uncertainty indices for the United States and Australia based on freely accessible, real time Google Trends data. Our Google Trends Uncertainty (GTU) indices are found to be positively correlated to a variety of alternative proxies for uncertainty available for these two countries....

Using state-dependent local projection methods and historical U.S. data, we find that government spending multipliers are considerably larger in periods of private debt overhang. In particular, we find significant crowding-out of personal consumption and investment in low-debt states, resulting...

Uncertainty about the future course of the economy is a possible driver of aggregate fluctuations. To identify the different dimensions of uncertainty in the macroeconomy we construct a large dataset covering all types of economic uncertainty. We then identify two fundamental factors which...

In this paper we use a general procedure to detect structural breaks at unknown points in time which allows for different orders of integration and deterministic components in each subsample (see Gil-Alana, 2006). First, we extend it to the non-linear case, and show by means of Monte Carlo...

This paper is concerned with the apparent change in the U.S. oil price-macroeconomy relationship. It is investigated to what extent this change can be accounted for by the large oil price surges witnessed in the 1970s. The innovative approach of rolling impulse responses is applied and both the...

In this paper we assess the information content of seven widely cited early indicators for the euro area with respect to forecasting area-wide industrial production. To this end, we use various tests that are designed to compare competing forecast models. In addition to the standard...

This paper adopts a flexible framework to assess both short- and long-run business cycle linkages between six Latin American (LA) countries and the four largest economies in the world (namely the US, the Euro area, Japan and China) over the period 1980:I-2011:IV. The result indicate that within...

The Ifo Business Climate is the most important indicator for the business cycle in Germany. In 1993 the connection between the two components of the business climate – business situation and business expectations – was graphically portrayed by Ifo in a 4-quadrant scheme: the Ifo Business...