Macroeconomic theory suggests that the choice of exchange rate (or, equivalently, monetary) regime is affected by the incidence of real or monetary shocks. Anecdotally, the Bretton Woods period in world economic history is thought to have been characterized by nominal, rather than real, shocks....

In recent years there has been increasing interest in forecasting methods that utilise large data sets, driven partly by the recognition that policymaking institutions need to process large quantities of information. Factor analysis is a popular way of doing this. Forecast combination is...

Theory tells us that output, the capital stock and the user cost of capital are related. From the capital accumulation identity, it also follows that the capital stock and investment have a long-run proportional relationship. The dynamic structure thus implies a multicointegrating framework, in...

Conventional wisdom has it that Tobin's Q cannot help explain aggregate investment. However, the standard linearized present-value asset price decomposition suggests that it should be able to predict other variables, such as stock returns. Using a new data set for the UK, we find that Q has...

This paper tests for the influence of political instability on UK economic growth between 1961 and 1997. We construct six variables that quantify political instability and examine the effect on growth. The results suggest that there is a strong link. GARCH-M models reveal negative effects of...

The methodology used in papers by Darby and Ireland and Caporale and Williams is examined, to see whether it continues to explain UK consumption behaviour. First, Muellbauer and Murphy's proxy for financial liberalisation (FLIB) is updated. Then a forward-looking consumption model is...

Theory tells us that output, the capital stock and the user cost of capital are related. From the capital accumulation identity, it also follows that the capital stock and investment have a long-run proportional relationship. The dynamic structure thus implies a multi-cointegrating framework, in...

Conventional wisdom has it that Tobin’s Q cannot help explain aggregate investment. This is puzzling, as recent evidence suggests the closely related user cost approach can do so. We do not attempt to explain this puzzle. Instead, we take an entirely different approach, not using the...