We show that, complementary to trade and financial linkages, the strength of the bankingsector helps explain the transmission of currency crises. Specifically, we demonstrate thatthe Mexican, Thai, and Russian crises predominantly spread to countries with weaknesses intheir banking sectors. At...

By distinguishing between discretionary and non-discretionary fiscal policy, this paper analyses the stability of fiscal rules for EMU countries before and after the Maastricht Treaty. Using both Instrumental Variables and GMM techniques, it turns out that discretionary fiscal policy remains...

We model a three-pillar pension system and analyse in this context the impact of the financial crisis on the aggregate economy, using an overlapping generations model where individuals live for two periods. The system consists of (1) a PAYG pension system, (2) a Defined Benefit pension fund, and...

This paper proposes a new statistical framework originating from the traditional credit-scoring literature, to evaluate currency crises Early Warning Systems (EWS). Based on an assessment of the predictive power of panel logit and Markov frameworks, the panel logit model is outperforming the...

We model a three-pillar pension system and analyse the impact of exogenous shocks on an open economy, using an overlapping generation model where individuals live for two periods. The three-pillar pension system consists of (1) a PAYG pension system, (2) a defined benefits pension fund, and (3)...

It is well known that cointegration between the level of two variables (labeled Y_{t} and y_{t} inthis paper) is a necessary condition to assess the empirical validity of a present-value model (PVand PVM, respectively, hereafter) linking them. The work on cointegration has been so prevalentthat...

With the development of real-time databases, N vintages are available for T observations instead of a single realization of the time series process. Although the use of panel unit root tests with the aim to gain in efficiency seems obvious, empirical and simulation results shown in this paper...

In this paper we document the growing dispersion of external and internal balances between countries in the North and South of the Euro area over the time period 1992 to 2007. We find a persistent divergence process that seems to have started with the introduction of the common currency and has...

This paper analyzes the empirical link between asset prices, consumption and the trade balance using a global macroeconometric model developed by Pesaran, Schuermann, and Weiner (2004). The model is estimated for 29 countries with quarterly data over the period 1981Q1 - 2006Q4. Motivated by...

This paper compares two approaches towards the empirical inertia of inflation and output. Two variants that produce persistence are added to a baseline DSGE model of sticky prices: 1) sticky information applied to firms, workers, and households; and 2) a backward-looking inflation indexation...