This paper develops a framework for assessing systemic risks and for predicting (out-of-sample) systemic events, i.e. periods of extreme financial instability with potential real costs. We test the ability of a wide range of “stand alone” and composite indicators in predicting systemic...

This paper aims at providing a detailed analysis of the leading indicator properties of corporate bond spreads for real economic activity in the euro area. In- and out-of-sample predictive content of corporate bond spreads are examined along three dimensions: the bonds' quality, their term to...

We search for early warning indicators that could indicate important risks in developed economies. We therefore examine which indicators are most useful in explaining costly macroeconomic developments following the occurrence of economic crises in EU and OECD countries between 1970 and 2010. To...

We compare the degree of anchoring of inflation expectations in the euro area, the United States and the United Kingdom, focusing on the post-crisis period. First of all, we estimate a set of measures of average and tail correlation using inflation swaps and options, following Natoli and...

Using OECD composite leading indicators (CLI), we assess empirically whether the ability of the country-specific CLIs to predict economic activity has diminished in recent years, e.g. due to rapid advances in globalisation. Overall, we find evidence that the CLI encompasses useful information...

In recent years, government revenues in many EU countries experienced significant and erratic changes, which, a priori, could not be fully explained by macroeconomic developments or by discretionary fiscal policy measures. We investigate this issue by estimating “unexplained” changes in tax...

Although many papers have already proposed empirical models of currency crises, the timing of such crises has received relatively little attention so far. Most papers use indeed a static specification and impose the same lag structure across all explanatory variables. This, by construction,...

This paper assesses the forecasting performance of various variable reduction and variable selection methods. A small and a large set of wisely chosen variables are used in forecasting the industrial production growth for four Euro Area economies. The results indicate that the Automatic Leading...

This paper considers the short-term effects of competitiveness shocks on macroeconomic performance in the euro area. Vector autoregressive models are estimated on quarterly data from 1995 to 2013 for individual countries and the whole euro area. The results show that competitiveness shocks help...

This paper analyses leading indicator properties of a broad set of credit spreads, compiled on the basis of information from both corporate bonds and bank loans for forecasting of real activity, unemployment, inflation and lending volumes in the euro area and in five major European economies. It...