There is a growing interest in studying the disagreement of economic agents. Most studies, however, focus on the disagreement regarding one specific variable, hereby neglecting that disagreement may be comoving with disagreement on other variables. In this paper we explore to which extent...

Recent literature suggests that news shocks could be an important driver of economic cycles. In this article, we use a direct measure of news sentiment derived from media reports. This allows us to examine whether innovations in the reporting tone correlate with changes in the assessment and...

We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables with the example of age-specific mortality in the U.S., building on the Lee-Carter approach and extending it in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables underlying...

We present a new way to model age-specific demographic variables, using the example of age-specific mortality in the United States, building on the LeeCarter approach and extending it in several dimensions. We incorporate covariates and model their dynamics jointly with the latent variables...

We analyze the impact of short-run economic fluctuations on age-specific mortality using Bayesian time series econometrics and contribute to the debate on the procyclicality of mortality. For the first time, we examine the differing consequences of economic changes for all individual age...

This paper presents insights on U.S. business cycle volatility since 1867 de- rived from diffusion indices. We employ a Bayesian dynamic factor model to obtain aggregate and sectoral economic activity indices. We find a remarkable increase in volatility across World War I, which is reversed...

This paper examines the role of currency and banking in the German financial crisis of 1931 for both Germany and the U.S. We specify a structural dynamic factor model to identify financial and monetary factors separately for each of the two economies. We find that monetary transmission through...