Previous assessments of nominal exchange rate determination have focused upon a narrow set of models typically of the 1970 s vintage, including monetary and portfolio balance models. In this paper we re-assess the in-sample fit and out-of-sample prediction of a wider set of models that have been...

In this paper we study the link between elections, fiscal policy and economic growth/fluctuations. The set-up is a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of growth and endogenously chosen fiscal policy, in which two political parties can alternate in power. The party in office chooses...

Almost all countries worldwide closed schools at the outbreak of the Covid-19 crisis. I document that schooling time dropped on average by -55% in the US and -45% in Germany from the onset of the crisis to the summer of 2021. In the US, schools were closed longer in richer than in poorer areas,...

While the yield spread has long been recognized as a good predictor of recessions, it seems to have been largely overlooked by professional forecasters. We examine this puzzle, established by Rudebusch and Williams (2009), in a data-rich environment including not just the yield spread but many...

This paper analyses the possible effects of the Covid-19 pandemic on the degree of persistence of US monthly stock prices and bond yields using fractional integration techniques. The model is estimated first over the period January 1966-December 2020 and then a recursive approach is taken to...

This note examines the stochastic behaviour of US monthly 10-year government bond yields. Specifically, it estimates a fractional integration model suitable to capture both persistence and non-linearities, these being two important properties of interest rates. Two series are analysed, one from...

This paper studies external sovereign bonds as an asset class. We compile a new database of 220,000 monthly prices of foreign-currency government bonds traded in London and New York between 1815 (the Battle of Waterloo) and 2016, covering 91 countries. Our main insight is that, as in equity...