Economists around the world rely in addition to official statistics on business (and consumer) surveys, which are more up-to-date. However, for many emerging and developing countries there is a lack of such surveys. This gap can, at least partly, be filled by the Ifo World Economic Survey (WES)....

This paper assesses the role of financial variables in real economic fluctuations, in view of analysing the link between financial cycles and business cycles at the global level. A Global VAR modelling approach, which has been proved suitable for modelling country or regional linkages, is used...

I empirically analyze the dynamics of business investment following normal recessions (declines in business investment that are not associated with banking crises) and banking crises. Using a panel of 16 advanced economies, I find evidence for significant non-linear trend reversion or...

The 2007-2008 global financial crisis and the subsequent anemic recovery have rekindled academic interest in quantifying the impact of uncertainty on macroeconomic dynamics. This paper studies the interrelation between financial markets volatility and economic activity assuming that both...