Has deflation contributed to the long lasting stagnation of the Japanese economy? Could the Bank of Japan have stopped deflation by implementing a more expansionary monetary policy? Our tentative answers are probably not to the first question, and probably yes to the second question. We find...

We study the time series properties of the Fama-French factor returns volatility processes. Among the original findings of this paper, we point to structural breaks in the volatility of the factors, and strong coincidence between the timing of the breaks in the volatility of the market portfolio...

In this paper the contributions of economic and financial integration to international stock markets comovements are investigated by means of a large scale macroeconometric model, set in the factor vector autoregressive framework (FVAR). The findings point to a key role of both economic and...

In the paper a new approach to the modelling of common components in long memory processes is introduced. The approach is based on a two-step procedure relying on Fourier transform methods (firrst step) and principal components analysis (second step), which, differently from previous...

In this paper international comovements among a set of key real and nominal macroeconomic variables for the G-7 countries have been investigated for the 1980-2005 period, using a Factor Vector Autoregressive approach. We present evidence that comovements in macroeconomic variables do not concern...

What are the causes of exchange rate volatility? When second moments implications of theories of exchange rates determination are considered, long-term fundamental linkages between macroeconomic and exchange rate volatility can be envisaged. Moreover, as the exchange rate is an important...

This paper contributes to the existing literature on central bank repo auctions. It is based on a structural econometric approach, whereby the primitives of bidding behavior (individual bid schedules and bid-shading components) are directly estimated. With the estimated parameters we calibrate a...

In the paper monthly realized moments for stock market returns for the US, the UK, Germany and Japan are employed to assess the linkages holding across moments and markets over the period 1973-2004. In the light of the theoretical framework proposed in the paper, the results point to a...

This paper assesses the sources of volatility persistence in Euro Area money market interest rates and the existence of linkages relating volatility dynamics. The main ?ndings of the study are as follows. Firstly, there is evidence of stationary long memory, of similar degree, in all series....

After more than a decade of stagnant growth, the Japanese economy is showing signs of full recovery, with deflation also having come to an end. Since the mid 1990s both supply side and demand side policy solutions to the Japanese stagnation have been suggested. By means of a Factor Vector...