This paper provides a survey of business cycle facts, updated to take account of recent data. Emphasis is given to the Great Recession, which was unlike most other postwar recessions in the United States in being driven by deleveraging and financial market factors. We document how recessions...

The main goal of this article is to provide an answer to the question: does anything forecast exchange rates, and if so, which variables? It is well known that exchange rate fluctuations are very difficult to predict using economic models, and that a random walk forecasts exchange rates better...

Forecasts guide decisions in all areas of economics and finance and their value can only be understood in relation to, and in the context of, such decisions. We discuss the central role of the loss function in helping determine the forecaster's objectives. Decision theory provides a framework...

In the past ten years, researchers have explored the impact of data revisions in many different contexts. Researchers have examined the properties of data revisions, how structural modeling is affected by data revisions, how data revisions affect forecasting, the impact of data revisions on...