Why is an inverted yield-curve slope such a powerful predictor of future recessions? We show that a decomposition of the yield curve slope into its expectations and risk premia components helps disentangle the channels that connect fluctuations in Treasury rates and the future state of the...

We analyze connectedness between the real and financial sectors of the U.S. economy. Using the weekly ADS index of the Philadelphia FED (the widely used business conditions indicator) to represent the real side, we find that during times of financial distress and/or business cycle turning points...

Why does the short-term slope of the yield curve predict recessions? We explore the economic forces underlying Treasury yields' fluctuations and highlight the roles of a tight monetary policy stance and expectations of lower inflation in predicting downturns. While the monetary policy stance is...

This paper proposes a reassessment of the old-age debate on universal banking and growth by putting it on a different plan. Modern financial economics are used to provide new theoretical foundations to Gerschenkron's (1962) hypothesis: universality is interpreted as a strategy for banks to reach...

Using a unique dataset of 22.5 million news articles from the Dow Jones Newswires Archive, we perform an in depth real-time out-of-sample forecasting comparison study with one of the most widely used data sets in the newer forecasting literature, namely the FRED-MD dataset. Focusing on U.S. GDP,...

We evaluate the forecasting performance of six different models for short-term forecasting of Macedonian GDP: 1) ARIMA model; 2) AR model estimated by the Kalman filter; 3) model that explains Macedonian GDP as a function of the foreign demand; 4) small structural model that links GDP components...

Revisionist estimates of growth rates during the British industrial revolution, though largely successful in presenting a more modest picture of Britain's 'take-off' prior to the 1830s, have also posed fresh analytical difficulties for champions of the new economic history. If 18th-century...

We argue that positive comovements between land prices and business investment are a driving force behind the broad impact of land-price dynamics on the macroeconomy. We develop an economic mechanism that captures the comovements by incorporating two key features into a DSGE model: we introduce...

We integrate the housing market and the labor market in a dynamic general equilibrium model with credit and search frictions. The model is confronted with the U.S. macroeconomic time series. Our estimated model can account for two prominent facts observed in the data. First, the land price and...

Recent decades witnessed a trend whereby private markets retreated from financing the real economy, while, simultaneously, the real economy itself became increasingly financialized. This trend resulted in public finance becoming more important for investments in capital development, technical...