This paper develops a new non-linear model to analyse the business cycle by exploiting the relationship between the asymmetrical behaviour of the cycle and leading indicators. The model proposed is an innovations form of the structural model underlying simple exponential smoothing that is...

This paper reconsiders the role of macroeconomic shocks and policies in determining the Great Recession and the subsequent recovery in the US. The Great Recession was mainly caused by a large demand shock and by the ZLB on the interest rate policy. In contrast with previous findings, the...

This paper investigates the role of fiscal policies over the aggregate EMU business cycle. Previous studies, based on the assumption of non-separability between public and private consumption, obtain a large public consumption multiplier, a small fraction of non-Ricardian households and,...

DSGE (Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) models are the common workhorse of modern macroeconomic theory. Whereas story-telling and policy analysis were in the forefront of applications since its inception, the forecasting perspective of DSGE models is only recently topical. In this study,...

DSGE models are typically estimated using Bayesian methods, but a researcher may want to estimate a DSGE model with full information maximum likelihood (FIML) so as to avoid the use of prior distributions. A very robust algorithm is needed to find the global maximum within the relevant parameter...

In this paper we develop methods for estimation and forecasting in large time-varying parameter vector autoregressive models (TVP-VARs). To overcome computational constraints with likelihood-based estimation of large systems, we rely on Kalman filter estimation with forgetting factors. We also...

Recessions and subsequent recoveries are frequently classified as “L-shaped” or “U-shaped,” with output losses in the former being permanent and losses in the latter at least partially made up by higher than average growth during the recovery. We estimate the probability of a U-shaped...

We estimate a medium scale DSGE model for the Euro area with Limited Asset Market Participation (LAMP). Our results suggest that in the recent EMU years LAMP is particularly sizeable (393 during 1993-2012) and important to understand business cycle features. The Bayes factor and the forecasting...

We embed a news shock, a noisy indicator of the future state, in a two-state Markov-switching growth model. Our framework, combined with parameter learning, features rich history-dependent uncertainty dynamics. We show that bad news that arrives during a prolonged economic boom can trigger a...

We investigate the drivers of EMU big fours' business cycles in a DSGE model. Our approach allows to disentangle the role of demand and technology shocks, where the latter may generate permanent consequences on national productivity levels. For the years before the financial crisis we cannot...