Milton Friedman, one of greatest economists of all time, died on November 16, 2006 at age 94. He was famous for his conclusion that “inflation is always and everywhere a monetary phenomenon,” and for the related notion that ultimately the only thing a central bank, such as the Federal...

The paper provides an alternative view to the Real and New Keynesian business cycle theories. The paper focuses on the combination of both real and nominal variables in explaining the cyclical movements of business cycles. We propose using Vector Autoregressive (VAR) technique on the production...

In this paper I address the following questions. - Has the business cycle become longer and shallower? And why? - How stabilizing is monetary policy. In answering these questions I summarize recent research undertaken by Adrian Pagan and myself that formalizes the procedures developed by Burns...

This paper develops an open economy portfolio balance model with endogenous asset supply. Domestic producers finance capital goods through credit and bonds in accordance with debt capital costs as well as through equity assets. Private households hold a portfolio of domestic and foreign assets,...

The launch of the euro has fed doubts concerning the constitution of an optimal European monetary zone. Indeed, the differences in legal, institutional and cultural frameworks… as well as the diversity of the productive and financial European systems may have led to the idea that Europe does...

This paper investigates the time-varying correlation between the EU12-wide business cycle and the initial EU12 member-countries based on Scalar-BEKK and multivariate Riskmetrics model frameworks for the period 1980-2012. The paper provides evidence that changes in the business cycle...

The R word has begun to appear in the media again bringing with it three technical questions viz, How will we know we are in recession? How will we know when it has ended? And How can we forecast its onset and ending? This paper does not provide answers to these questions rather it focuses on...

This paper examines the spatial interaction of neighboring cities over their employment cycles. The cycles of neighboring cities tend to be more similar to one another than are those of non-neighboring cities, although this is due primarily to neighbors' tendency to be in the same state. In...

This paper examines the determinants of output growth differentials from set convergence criteria in a panel of West African Monetary Zone (WAMZ) states. Drawing largely from micro-founded models, rooted in New Keynesian traditions, the study shows that widespread divergence of output growth...

Theory suggests that endogenous borrowing constraints amplify the impact of external shocks on the economy. How big is the amplification? In this paper, we quantitatively investigate this question in the context of a dynamic general equilibrium model with borrowing constraints under two...