Financial shocks generate a protracted and quantitatively important effect on real economic activity and financial markets only if the shocks are both negative and large. Otherwise, their role is quite modest. Financial shocks have become more important for economic fluctuations after the 2000...

Financial shocks represent a major driver of fluctuations in tail risk, defined as the 5th percentile of the forecast distributions of output and inflation. Since the variance and the asymmetry of the forecast distributions are largely driven by the left tail, financial shocks turn out to play a...