Timely and accurate signals about the current state of the economy are essential for analysts. The objective of the paper is to compare the accuracy of PMI-based nowcast of current quarter-on-quarter real GDP growth with that of the flash GDP estimateIn-sample regressions for 1998Q3-2011Q1...

The United States has extended the duration that unemployment insurance (UI) benefits can be received during every recession in the last half century. In the recession of the early 1990s and 2000s Congress extended UI benefits by 27 and 20 weeks respectively, at a cost of $37.1 and $23.4 billion...

The dating of cyclical phenomena in economies, such as business cycles, is at the core of economic policy research. Moreover, policy decisions which are due to affect interacting economies should take into account the economies' connectedness and synchronicity. The cross-country analysis of...

We examine the effect of output shocks in different regions of the world on South Africa, with the use of a customised global vector autoregression (GVAR) model for the country from 1980 to 2010. The aim of the paper is to compare the impact of economic shocks in different countries on the South...

Ireland is (together with Greece and Portugal) a euro-zone country, which is receiving financial assistance. It is conditional on acceptance of recommendations of common experts groups of European commission, European central bank and International monetary fund. Macroeconomic stabilization...

In this context, there is a need to assess the role of MFIs to the sustainable growth of women microenterprises, the promotion of entrepreneurship activities and reducing poverty in Sudan. These are therefore the objectives of this research, which in addition tries to investigate the level to...

This study presents a model that delivers more accurate forecasts of the revised rather initial estimates of the quarterly GDP growth rate in Switzerland during the period of the recent financial crisis. The key explanation to our findings is that our model, capitalizing on the information...

When dealing with credit booms driven by capital inflows, monetary authorities in emerging markets are often reluctant to raise interest rates, as they fear that an increase attracts even more capital and appreciates the currency. A number of countries therefore use reserve requirements as an...

Developing economies, like Nigeria, have historically been reluctant to admitting more than a moderate degree of exchange rate flexibility due to the fear that such variations might feed into domestic prices. The potential vulnerability of small and open economies to exchange rate pass-through...

There exists a wealth of literature dealing with the analysis of business cycles, dating their turning points, measuring their synchronisation and identifying potential sources behind cyclical asymmetries, but most work concentrates on the countrywide level. The analysis of business cycle...