Based on a vector autoregressive model, this paper shows that time variation in monthly excess returns on Swiss government bonds and stocks is predominantly driven by news of inflation and dividends, respectively. This finding is in marked contrast to US evidence which points to a more prominent...

The global Great Recession has sparked renewed interest in the relationships between financial conditions and real activity. This paper considers the Swiss experience, studying the impact of credit market conditions and housing prices on real activity over the last three decades through the lens...

This paper studies the ability of external imbalances to indicate subsequent exchange rate returns. We propose a simple twist of the Gourinchas and Rey (2007) approximation to the intertemporal budget constraint which is valid for countries that are net creditors (or net debtors) consistently...

Inflation expectations are a key variable in conducting monetary policy. However, these expectations are generally unobservable and only certain proxy variables exist, such as surveys on inflation expectations. This paper offers guidance on the appropriate quantification of household inflation...