This paper aims to assess the usefulness of leading indicators in business cycle research and forecast. Initially we test the predictive power of the ESI within a static probit model as a leading indicator, commonly perceived to be able to provide a reliable summary of the current economic...

This paper is a statistical analysis of the manner in which the Federal Reserve determines the level of the Federal funds rate target, one of the most publicized and anticipated economic indicators in the financial world. The analysis presents two econometric challenges: (1) changes in the...

We develop a novel multinomial logistic model to detect and forecast concurrent recessions across multi-countries. The key advantage of our proposed framework is that we can detect recessions across countries using the additional informational content from the cross-country panel feature of the...

In this paper, a Bayesian approach is suggested to compare unit root models with stationary models when both the level and the error variance are subject to structural changes (known as breaks) of an unknown date. The paper utilizes analytic and Monte Carlo integration techniques for calculating...

A prominent class of nonlinear time series models are threshold autoregressive models. Recently work by Kapetanios (2000) has shown in a Monte Carlo setting that the superconsistency property of the threshold parameter estimates does not translate to superior performance in small samples....

This paper investigates how monetary policy can help to avoid the liquidity trap by studying the experience of Japan. First, I analyze how the Bank of Japan conducted interest rate policy over the 1990s as the economy entered a deflationary slump. I use a new method of estimating the policy rule...

This paper introduces a new model of structural breaks which assumes that structural breaks are driven by large economic shocks. The model specifies that both the timing and size of breaks are stochastic and it can be used to investigate the impact of large economic shocks on the stability of...

The conventional dyadic multiresolution analysis constructs a succession of frequency intervals in the form of (π / 2 j, π / 2 j - 1); j = 1, 2, . . . , n of which the bandwidths are halved repeatedly in the descent from high frequencies to low frequencies. Whereas this...

This paper applies a new model of structural breaks developed by Kapetanios and Tzavalis (2004) to investigate if there exist structural changes in the mean reversion parameter of US macroeconomic series. Ignoring such type of breaks may lead to spurious evidence of unit roots in the...

This paper shows that in ation in industrialized countries is largely a global phenomenon. First, the inflation rates of 22 OECD countries have a common factor that alone accounts for nearly 70 percent of their variance. This large variance share that is associated with Global Inflation is not...