The most prominent characteristic of the Japanese yen/U.S. dollar nominal exchange rate in the post-Plaza Accord era is near random-walk behavior sharing a common stochastic trend with the two-country monetary base differential augmented with excess reserves. In this paper, we develop a simple...

This paper examines the usefulness of a more refined business cycle classification for monthly industrial production (IP), beyond the usual distinction between expansions and contractions. Univariate Markov-switching models show that a three regime model is more appropriate than a model with...

The paper contributes to the growing global VAR (GVAR) literature by showing how global and national shocks can be identified within a GVAR framework. The usefulness of the proposed approach is illustrated in an application to the analysis of the interactions between public debt and real output...

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the heterogeneity of recessions in monthly U.S. coincident and leading indicator variables. Univariate Markovswitching models indicate that it is appropriate to allow for two distinct recession regimes, corresponding with 'mild' and 'severe'...

In a recent paper, Chang, Gomes, and Schorfheide (American Economic Review 2002, p. 1498-1520) extend the standard real business cycle (RBC) model to allow for a learning-by-doing (LBD) mechanism whereby current labor supply affects future productivity. They show that this feature magnifies the...

In a recent paper, Chang, Gomes, and Schorfheide (2002) extend the standard real business cycle (RBC) model to allow for a learning-by-doing (LBD) mechanism whereby current labour supply affects future productivity. They show that this feature magnifies the propagation of shocks and improves the...