A VAR analysis of Swiss data from 1987 to 2015 provides no evidence for significant long and short run influence of leverage on GDP, credit and the interest rate spread. Increasing capital requirements for banks should therefore have no strong negative macroeconomic effects.

We propose a unique method of nowcasting and forecasting GDP growth based on a forward-looking measure of unemployment (FLUR) and Okun's law that offers a number of advantages over current leading indicators of the Swiss business cycle. The following investigation, covering the period from...

This paper analyzes forward-looking rules for Swiss monetary policy in a small structural VAR model consisting of four variables taking into account data revisions for GDP. First, the paper develops an analytical method to analyze the effect of data revision errors in GDP on the ex ante or...