A probit model is used to examine the stability of the predictive content of the term structure in forecasting U.S. recessions. In particular, we compare forecasts of a recession under different assumptions regarding the presence of a structural break. We find strong evidence of the existence of...

The US business cycle expansion that started in March 1991 is the longest on record. This paper uses statistical techniques to examine whether this expansion is a onetime unique event or whether its length is a result of a change in the stability of the US economy. Bayesian methods are used to...

This article presents a structural model of the Italian motor third party insurance sector, introducing an innovative methodology to analyze and forecast premium dynamics and underwriting profitability. Long and short-run relationships between the macroeconomic environment and claims average...

Building on the New Area Wide Model, we develop a 4-region macroeconomic model of the euro area and the world economy. The model (EAGLE, Euro Area and Global Economy model) is microfounded and designed for conducting quantitative policy analysis of macroeconomic interdependence across regions...

We question the ability of macroeconomic data to predict risk appetite and "flight-to-quality" periods in the European credit market using a model inspired by the Markov Switching (MS) literature. This model allows for a direct mapping of exogenous variables into states probabilities. We find...

Financial indicators such as yield curves and stock prices have been extensively used as leading indicators of economic activity due to their forward looking content. Indeed, the Leading Economic Index (LEI) for the United States, a widely used forecasting tool for business cycle turning points,...

This paper investigates the relationship between macroeconomic variables and Bahraini stock market development by using the Autoregressive Distributed Lag model. The development of a financial market is closely related to the overall development in the national economy. Well functioning...

This paper provides empirical evidence regarding the causal links between macroeconomic uncertainty and output growth using Greek data. Uncertainty is considered in distinct components, namely the inflation uncertainty and the output growth uncertainty. The results reveal significant negative...

This paper examines the efficiency of decision trees on US economic crisis periods. Many other studies examined various approaches, like noise-to-ratio models, discrete choice models, neural networks, fuzzy logic and neuro-fuzzy systems among others. Two approaches are applied. The first is a...

Fat tails of q-Gaussian distributions of daily log-leverage-returns of 520 North American industrial firms reported by Katz and Tian (2013) imply a significantly higher credit risk at short time-horizons and/or large initial distances to the default barrier than forecasted by traditional...