This paper reviews recent developments in macro and finance on the relationship between financial risk and the real economy. We focus on three specific topics: the term structure of uncertainty, time variation - and specifically the long-term decline - in the variance risk premium, and time...

The recent global recession requires policy makers to identify the relative importance of shock transmission mechanisms in each region and devise counter policy measures against future idiosyncratic shocks. In the last decade, world dynamics have changed considerably due to increased openness...

It is still insufficiently realised, even now, that the US and therefore the rest of the world may be on the brink of a severe and intractable recession. As recently as September 2000, it was commonly held that the US business cycle had been abolished for ever, while the “consensus” forecast...

The strategic outlook of the U.S. can be assessed by analyzing the balance sheets of its main sectors, which are mutually linked by a coherent system of accounting. The expansion of the period 1992-2000 was greeted by a wave of complacency in the United States and it was thought that it could...