In this paper we replace the Gaussian errors in the standard Gaussian, linear state space model with stochastic volatility processes. This is called a GSSF-SV model. We show that conventional MCMC algorithms for this type of model are ineffective, but that this problem can be removed by...

In this paper we replace the Gaussian errors in the standard Gaussian, linear state space model with stochastic volatility processes. This is called a GSSF-SV model. We show that conventional MCMC algorithms for this type of model are ineffective, but that this problem can be removed by...

The process of European integration has gained considerable momentum during the past couple of years. This paper provides an assessment of the degree of integration of both the accession states of central and eastern Europe and of the pre-ins for monetary union with respect to Germany. Using...

This paper investigates if the impact of uncertainty shocks on the U.K. economy has changed over time. To this end, we propose an extended time-varying VAR model that simultaneously allows the estimation of a measure of uncertainty and its time-varying impact on key macroeconomic and financial...

The modified harmonic mean is widely used for estimating the marginal likelihood. We investigate the empirical performance of two versions of this estimator: one based on the observed-data likelihood and the other on the complete-data likelihood. Through an empirical example using US and UK...

This paper investigates the merger wave hypothesis for the US and the UK employing a Markov regime switching model. Using quarterly data covering the last thirty years, for the US, we identify the beginning of a merger wave in the mid 1990s but not the much-discussed 1980s merger wave. We argue...

This paper addresses two important questions that have, so far, been studied separately in the literature. First, the paper aims at explaining the high volatility of long-term interest rates observed in the data, which is hard to replicate using standard macro models. Building a small-scale...

The present work applies several advanced spectral methods to the analysis of macroeconomic fluctuations in three countries of the European Union: Italy, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom. We focus here in particular on singular-spectrum analysis (SSA), which provides valuable spatial and...