Using a German firm-level data set, this paper is the first to jointly study the cyclical properties of the cross-sections of firm-level real value added and Solow residual innovations, as well as capital and employment adjustment. We find two new business cycle facts: 1) The cross-sectional...

Is time-varying firm-level uncertainty a major cause or amplifier of the business cycle? This paper investigates this question in the context of a heterogeneous-firm RBC model with persistent firm-level productivity shocks and lumpy capital adjustment, where cyclical changes in uncertainty...

Nowadays, it is widely believed that greater disclosure and clarity over policy may lead to greater predictability of central bank actions. We examine whether communication by the European Central Bank (ECB) adds information compared to the information provided by a Taylor rule model in which...

This paper examines the relationship between US disposable personal income (DPI) and house price index (HPI) during the last twenty years applying fractional integration and long-range dependence techniques to monthly data from January 1991 to July 2010. The empirical findings indicate that the...

In this paper we challenge the view that the oil price has lost its influence on economic activity after the mid-1980s. While we concede that typical VAR models put forward in the literature fail to identify oil price shocks that significantly affect aggregate production, we obtain clearly...

This paper analyses two well-known features of interest rates, namely their time dependence and their cyclical structure. Specifically, it focuses on the monthly Euribor rate, using monthly data from January 1994 to May 2011. Models based on fractional integration at the long run or zero...

I find that the Eurosystem can stimulate the economy beyond the policy rate by increasing the size of its balance sheet or the monetary base, that is so-called quantitative easing. The transmission mechanism turns out to be different compared to traditional interest rate innovations: (i) whilst...

One of the leading methods of estimating the structural parameters of DSGE models is the VAR-based impulse response matching estimator. The existing asymptotic theory for this estimator does not cover situations in which the number of impulse response parameters exceeds the number of VAR model...

Capital flow and commodity cycles have long been connected with economic crises. Sparse historical data, however, has made it difficult to connect their timing. We date turning points in global capital flows and commodity prices across two centuries and provide estimates from alternative data...

Using a two-sector estimated DSGE model with a financial channel we show the sector where TFP news arrives matters for its propagation and quantitative importance. Anticipated increases in TFP expected to arrive in the consumption sector are expansionary while those in the investment sector are...