The author describes results obtained by using a new methodology to estimate potential output for the United Kingdom. The estimation method, which follows Rennison (2003) and Gosselin and Lalonde (2002), shows that combining the use of a Hodrick-Prescott filter and a structural vector...

The authors estimate a sticky-price dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model with a financial accelerator, à la Bernanke, Gertler, and Gilchrist (1999), to assess the importance of financial frictions in the amplification and propagation of the effects of transitory shocks. Structural...

We propose a drifting-coefficient model to empirically study the effect of money on output growth in Canada and to examine the role of prevailing financial conditions for that relationship. We show that such a time-varying approach can be a useful way of modelling the impact of money on growth,...

This paper considers a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for a small open economy and finds that an improvement in the terms of trade causes a housing boom-bust cycle if the duration of the improvement is uncertain. It is shown that as the economy has better access to the...

Financial crises in emerging economies in the 1980s and 1990s often entailed abrupt declines in foreign capital inflows, improvements in trade balance, and large declines in output and total factor productivity (TFP). This paper develops a two-sector small open economy model wherein...

Of particular concern to monetary policy-makers is the considerable unreliability of financial variables for predicting GDP growth and inflation. As Stock and Watson (2003) find, some financial variables work well in some countries or over some time periods and forecast horizons, but the results...

Following the seminal contribution of Kiyotaki and Moore (1997), the role of collateral constraints for business cycle fluctuations has been highlighted by several authors and collateralized debt is becoming a popular feature of business cycle models. In contrast, Kocherlakota (2000) and Cordoba...

This paper studies the effects of a monetary policy expansion in the United States during times of high financial stress. The analysis is carried out by introducing a smooth transition factor model where the transition between states (“normal” and high financial stress) depends on a...

Two models of default risk are prominent in the financial literature: Merton's structural model and Altman's non-structural model. Merton's structural model has the benefit of being responsive, since the probabilities of default can continually be updated with the evolution of firms' asset...

This paper examines the ability of linear and nonlinear models to replicate features of real Canadian GDP. We evaluate the models using various business-cycle metrics. From the 9 data generating processes designed, none can completely accommodate every business-cycle metric under consideration....