The purpose of this paper is to establish a positive correlation between property rights and economic freedom. It seeks to demonstrate that property rights lead to economic freedom. From a purely theoretical perspective, it has been assumed that greater access to property rights leads to...

Dynamic factor models (DFM) and dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models are widely used for empirical research in macroeconomics. The empirical factor literature argues that the co-movement of large panels of macroeconomic and financial data can be captured by relatively few common...

I study the evolution of aggregate volatility in the US during the postwar period by assessing the relative role played by financial shocks, technological progress, and changes in the financial system. Balance-sheet variables of firms have been characterized by greater volatility since the early...

In the first chapter, I develop and estimate a dynamic general equilibrium model with imperfectly informed firms in the sense of Woodford (2002). The model has two aggregate shocks: a monetary policy shock and a technology shock. Firms observe idiosyncratic noisy signals about these shocks and...

Commodity price uncertainty imposes large costs on society. On the macro level, it results in sudden and unexpected shifts in current account imbalances and real GDP volatility, while on the micro level, it leads to allocation inefficiencies. Accurate price forecasts have the potential to remove...

Discusses a number of issues put forward by the other authors in this volume. In particular considers the potential role of real interest rates in unemployment models, the importance of the trade balance and related constraints in open economy models and the uniqueness and stability of...