We investigate for 26 OECD economies if their current account imbalances are driven by stochastic trends. Standard ADF results are contrasted with tests accounting for the bounded support of the current account. Neglecting the latter feature might give misleading results in the sense that ADF...

We provide a method for distinguishing long-range dependence from deterministic trends such as structural breaks. The method is based on the comparison of standard log-periodogram regression estimation of the memory parameter with its tapered counterpart. The difference of these estimators...

We consider time series models in which the conditional mean of the response variable given the past depends on latent covariates. We assume that the covariates can be estimated consistently and use an iterative nonparametric kernel smoothing procedure for estimating the conditional mean...

We propose new scoring rules based on partial likelihood for assessing the relative out-of-sample predictive accuracy of competing density forecasts over a specific region of interest, such as the left tail in financial risk management. By construction, existing scoring rules based on weighted...

This paper uses disaggregated CPI time series to show that a break in the mean of French inflation occurred in the mid-eighties and that the 1983 monetary policy shift mostly accounted for it. CPI average yearly growth declined from nearly 11% before the break date (May 1985) to 2.1% after. No...

In this paper we present an empirically stable euro area money demand model. Using a sample period until 2009:2 shows that the current financial and economic crisis that started in 2007 does not appear to have any noticeable impact on the stability of the euro area money demand function. We also...

We consider a recently proposed class of nonlinear time series models and focus mainly on misspecification testing for models of such type. Following the modeling cycle for nonlinear time series models of specification, estimation and evaluation we first treat how to choose an adequate...

In this paper we present an empirically stable euro area money demand model. Using a sample period until 2009:2 shows that the current financial and economic crisis that started in 2007 does not appear to have any noticeable impact on the stability of the euro area money demand function. We also...

The econometrics literature contains a variety of two-sided tests for unknown breakpoints in time-series models with one or more parameters. This paper derives an analogous one-sided test that takes into account the direction of the change for a single parameter. In particular, we propose a sup...

The share of health care expenditure in GDP rises rapidly in virtually all OECD countries, causing increasing concern among politicians and the general public. Yet, economists have to date failed to reach an agreement on what the main determinants of this development are. This paper revisits...