This paper evaluates the predictive out-of-sample forecasting properties of six different economic uncertainty variables for both growth in aggregate M2 and growth in household-sector M2 in the U.S. using data between 1971m1 and 2014m12. The core contention is that economic uncertainty improves...

Estimates of the welfare costs of inflation based on Bailey's (1956) methodology are typically computed on the basis of aggregate money demand models. Yet, the behavior of money demand is likely to vary across sectors. As a result, the impact on welfare of changes in the inflation regime may...

In this paper, I try to shed some new light on the puzzle why the Lucas critique, belived to be important by most economists, seems to have received very little empirical support. I use a real business cycle model to examine the properties of the super exogeneity test, which is used to detect...

In this paper, we develop a test for the existence of a middle 'band of inaction' in a three-regime threshold vector error correction model (TVECM). A Wald statistic is proposed for this purpose, its limiting distribution is derived (which is non-standard) and critical values calculated through...

This study introduces a comprehensive Google search volume based Bitcoin sentiment index (BSI) by following the methodology of Da, Engelberg, and Gao (2014). BSI is investigated for its association with Bitcoin returns, trade volume, volatility, and United States dollar exchange rates (USD)....

In this paper, which is the third installment of the author´s trilogy on margin loan pricing, we analyze 1367 monthly observations of the U.S. broker call money rate, e.g., the interest rate at which stockbrokers can borrow to fund their margin loans to retail clients. We describe the basic...

We measure consumers’ use of cash by harmonizing payment diary surveys from seven countries: Australia, Austria, Canada, France, Germany, the Netherlands, and the United States (conducted 2009 through 2012). Our paper finds important cross-country differences, for example, the level of cash...

We measure consumers' use of cash by harmonizing payment diary surveys from seven countries. The seven diary surveys were conducted in 2009 (Canada), 2010 (Australia), 2011 (Austria, France, Germany, and the Netherlands), and 2012 (the United States). Our paper finds cross-country differences -...

A comprehensive measure of economic uncertainty, known as "Policy Uncertainty", which was constructed by the Economic Policy Uncertainty Group by searching popular newspapers for uncertain terms associated with economic factors and its impact on macro variables, is gaining momentum. Although...