The partial privatization of the US Social Security system was clearly the top economic policy priority for the new Bush administration. While many famous economists, publicists and politicians support, others reject the partial privatization of the Social Security system. The international...

This paper gives an overview of some issues related to market valuation, focusing on the developments on the New York equity markets. The 42.4 p.c. fall in the S&P 500 price index between 24 March 2000 - when it reached its all-time high - and 31 December 2002 is situated in a very long term...

Household consumption is the most important component of gross domestic product (GDP) and its dynamics is crucial to understanding the changes in the dynamics of the economy in boom periods and crises. This paper analyzes the structure of household consumption in Brazil between the years 2000...

This paper uses a new cross-country cross-industry dataset on investment in tangible and intangible assets for 18 European countries and the US. We set out a framework for measuring intangible investment and capital stocks and their effect on output, inputs and total factor productivity. The...

Abstract: An important part of external or policy shocks is transmitted throughout the economy via various channels of transactions. To analyse such channels and to predict the impact of shocks, it is expedient to know who recently exchanged what with whom and for what purpose. The most...

Integrated quarterly sector accounts (QSA) provide an analytical tool to understand the generation, allocation and use of income for all institutional sectors in the economy. They also provide a tool to analyse production from a sectoral point of view instead of an industry point of view....

The policy focus on excessive leverage in the euro area has raised interest in developing comprehensive analytical approaches to better understand the interrelationship between leverage and deleveraging processes across economic agents. In particular, the interplay between government debt and...

Under the current international economic conditions, where Asian countries are strong competitors in the manufacturing commodities, low-income countries like Mozambique could attempt to compete in industries without smokestacks. Fruits and vegetables, agro-processing goods, and various tradable...

We introduce a high-dimensional structural time series model, where co-movement between the components is due to common factors. A two-step estimation strategy is presented, which is based on principal components in differences in a first step and state space methods in a second step. The...