We use the Kalman filter to estimate the structure of the secret currency basket of the renminbi based on daily data between 2005 and 2009. The currency weights of selected currencies are modeled as stochastic processes (random walks). The official announcement of the new exchange rate regime in...

For forecasting and economic analysis many variables are used in logarithms (logs). In time series analysis this transformation is often considered to stabilize the variance of a series. We investigate under which conditions taking logs is beneficial for forecasting. Forecasts based on the...

Autoregressive models are used routinely in forecasting and often lead to better performance than more complicated models. However, empirical evidence is also suggesting that the autoregressive representations of many macroeconomic and financial time series are likely to be subject to structural...

In this paper an Unobserved Components Model is employed to decompose U.S. real GDP into trend and cycle components. The main findings are that there exist three cycles with a period of about two, five and 13 years, respectively, and that the long-run development during the last 50 years can be...

This paper makes a twofold contribution, First, it develops the dynamic factor model of Barigozzi et al. (2016) by allowing for fractional integration instead of imposing the classical dichotomy between I(0) stationary and I(1) non-stationary series. This more general setup provides valuable...

This paper aims to select the best model or set of models for modelling volatility of the four most popular cryptocurrencies, i.e. Bitcoin, Ethereum, Ripple and Litecoin. More than 1,000 GARCH models are fitted to the log returns of the exchange rates of each of these cryptocurrencies to...

Business cycle indicators are used to assess the economic situation of countries or regions. They are closely watched by the public, but are not easy to interpret. Does a current movement of the indicator signal a turning point or not? With the help of Markov Switching Models movements of...

This study develops a stylised DSGE model, that departs in one aspect: it replaces the general equilibrium approach by disequilibrium economics. In this way, richer macroeconomic adjustment dynamics result, as it is not necessary to assume that goods and labour markets continuously clear. The...

Advanced statistical techniques are used to analyze Hong Kong output dynamics. Hong Kong, Japan and the U.S. are found to share some common long-term and short-term cyclical variations. While the Hong Kong economy is susceptible to external shocks and Granger-caused by the other two economies,...

We have studied the relationship between Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) and Precision-Recall Curve (PRC) both analytically and using a real-life empirical example of yield spread as a predictor of recessions. We show that false alarm rate in ROC and inverted precision in PRC are...