We propose a common factor approach to analyse convergence, which we implement using principal components analysis. This technique has not been used to analyse convergence of time series but is shown to provide a useful new tool. We show how it is in many ways a more natural way of approaching...

The New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) specifies a relationship between inflation and a forcing variable and the current period’s expectation of future inflation. Most empirical estimates of the NKPC, typically based on Generalized Method of Moments (GMM) estimation, have found a significant...

With the outbreak of the Greek financial crisis in late 2009, spreads on Greek (and other) sovereigns reached unprecedented levels. Using a panel data of euro-area countries, we test whether the markets treated all euro-area countries in an equal manner over the period 1998:m1 to 2012:m6. In a...

Recent theoretical approaches stress the importance of complex integration strategies of multinationals and the interdependence between locations. Up till now little has been done to incorporate the potential cross-country dependencies into the empirical analysis of the determinants and the...

The method of instrumental variables (IV) and the generalized method of moments (GMM), and their applications to the estimation of errors-in-variables and simultaneous equations models in econometrics, require data on a sufficient number of instrumental variables that are both exogenous and...

During the euro-area financial crisis, interactions between sovereign spreads and credit ratings appeared to have led to self-generating feedback loops. To examine the interaction between spreads and ratings, we estimate a simultaneous two-equation model in which spreads and ratings are...

We quantify the linkages among banks’ equity performance and indicators of sovereign stress by using panel GMM to estimate a three-equation system that examines the impact of sovereign stress, as reflected in both sovereign spreads and sovereign ratings, on bank share prices. We use data for a...

Misspecifications of econometric models can lead to biased coefficients and error terms, which in turn can lead to incorrect inference and incorrect models. There are specific techniques such as instrumental variables which attempt to deal with some individual forms of model misspecification....

We present a common factor framework of convergence which we implement using principal components analysis. We apply this technique to a dataset of monthly inflation rates of EMU and the Eastern European New Member Countries (NMC) over 1996-2007. In the earlier years, the NMC rates moved...