A new test is proposed for the null of absence of serial correlation. The test uses a data-driven smoothing parameter. The resulting test statistic has a standard limit distribution under the null. The smoothing parameter is calibrated to achieve rate-optimality against several classes of...

When constructing unconditional point forecasts, both direct- and iterated-multistep (DMS and IMS) approaches are common. However, in the context of producing conditional forecasts, IMS approaches based on vector autoregressions (VAR) are far more common than simpler DMS models. This is despite...

This paper studies the role of global and regional variations in economic activity and policy in developed world in driving portfolio capital flows (PCF) to emerging markets (EMs) in a Factor Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) framework. Results suggest that PCFs to EMs depend mainly on...

We study the impact of climate volatility on economic growth exploiting data on 133 countries between 1960 and 2005. We show that the conditional (ex ante) volatility of annual temperatures increased steadily over time, rendering climate conditions less predictable across countries, with...

The role of climate change on economic performance and output has been studied extensively in the empirical literature, however, its distributional effects have received little attention. This paper attempts to fill this gap by investigating whether climate shocks affect income inequality in a...

Tax policy is among the most common and relevant instruments in the toolkit of policy-makers when thinking about promoting growth, yet there is not compelling evidence regarding its effect in Latin American countries. Using a variety of approaches, we estimate the effects on growth of the most...

In this paper, we analyse Okun's law - a relation between the change in the unemployment rate and GDP growth - using data from Australia, the euro area, the United Kingdom and the United States. More specifically, we assess the relevance of non-Gaussianity when modelling the relation. This is...

The identification of the effects of climate shocks on economic growth is central to design effective policies aiming at managing the future global climate change challenge. In this study, we investigate the effects of temperature and precipitation shocks on economic growth across different...