In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, competing measures of the trend in macroeconomic variables such as US real GDP have featured prominently in policy debates. A key question is whether the large shocks to macroeconomic variables will have permanent effects — i.e., in econometric...

Identification in the context of multivariate state space modelling involves the specification of the dimension of the state vector. One identification approach requires an estimate of the rank of a Hankel matrix. The most frequently used approaches of rank determination rely on information...

Since the 1970s the characteristics of international business cycles have changed and deeper economic integration has modified the features of cross-country comovement. We formally test for correlation shifts in measures of real economic activity and economic/financial integration. In Europe we...

We use the method of indirect inference, using the bootstrap, to test the Smets and Wouters model of the EU against a VAR auxiliary equation describing their data. We find that their model generates excessive variance compared with the data. But their model fits the dynamic facts quite well if...

Conventional tests of present-value models over-reject the null of no predictability. In order to better account for the intrinsic probability of detecting predictive relations by chance alone, we develop a new nonparametric Monte Carlo testing method, which does not rely on distributional...

We examine a two country model of the EU and the US. Each has a small sector of the labour and product markets in which there is wage/price rigidity, but otherwise enjoys flexible wages and prices with a one quarter information lag. Using a VAR to represent the data, we find the model as a whole...

This paper applies linear and neural network-based "thick" models for forecasting inflation based on Phillips-curve formulations in the USA, Japan and the euro area. Thick models represent "trimmed mean" forecasts from several neural network models. They outperform the best performing linear...

We derive computationally simple and intuitive score tests of neglected serial correlation in unobserved component univariate models using frequency domain techniques. In some common situations in which the alternative model information matrix is singular under the null, we derive one-sided...

This paper proposes the Lagrange multiplier test for the null hypothesis thatthe bivariate time series has only a single common stochastic volatility factor and noidiosyncratic volatility factor. The test statistic is derived by representing the model in alinear state-space form under the...