Studies of aid effectiveness abound in the literature, often with opposing conclusions. Since most time-series studies use data from the exact same publicly available data bases, our claim here is that such differences in results must be due to the use of different econometric models and...

A recent study of 36 sub-Saharan African countries found a positive impact of aid in the absolute majority of these countries. However, for Tanzania and Ghana, two major aid recipients, aid did not seem to have been equally beneficial. This paper singles out these two countries for a more...

This paper examines the transmission channels through which property markets propagate shocks to the real economy. Using a four-equation model which portrays the theoretical inter-linkages between real estate value and other components of the economy, our findings suggest that in the short run,...

We propose the use of likelihood-based confidence sets for the timing of structural breaks in parameters from time series regression models. The confidence sets are valid for the broad setting of a system of multivariate linear regression equations under fairly general assumptions about the...

An n-variable structural vector auto-regression (SVAR) can be identified (up to shock order) from the evolution of the residual covariance across time if the structural shocks exhibit heteroskedasticity (Rigobon (2003), Sentana and Fiorentini (2001)). However, the path of residual covariances is...

Economic sentiment surveys are carried out by all European Union member states on a monthly basis. The survey outcomes are used to obtain early insight into future economic evolutions and often receive extensive press coverage. Based on these surveys, the European Commission constructs an...

Can China build on its development success to achieve high-income status in the decades ahead? To shed light on this question, we examine the past and prospective future sources of growth in China through the lens of the neoclassical growth model. Our key finding is that China would need to...

This paper examines how global uncertainty and domestic shocks (domestic uncertainty) affect macroeconomic performance, such as household consumption expenditure, gross fixed capital formation, and goods and services exports, in Indonesia, Malaysia, the Philippines, and Thailand. The Global...

Japan’s remarkable postwar growth spurt in the 1960s would not have been possible without Japan’s alliance with the United States. Policy makers, political scientists, economists, historians, and journalists on both sides of the Pacific have made this claim, but no study has yet tested it...