In this paper we assess the merits of financial condition indices constructed using simple averages versus a more sophisticated alternative that uses factor models with time varying parameters. Our analysis is based on data for 18 advanced and emerging economies at a monthly frequency covering...

The article analyses recent developments in business investment for a large group of EU countries, using a broad set of analytical tools and data sources. We find that the assessment of whether or not investment is currently low varies across benchmarks and countries. At the euro area level and...

This paper models industrial new orders across European Union (EU) Member States for various breakdowns. A common modelling framework exploits both soft data (business opinion surveys) and hard data (industrial turnover). The estimates show for about 200 cases that the model determinants...

I examine the relevance of contagion in explaining financial distress in the US banking system by identifying the component of bank level probabilities that is due to contagion. Identification is achieved after controlling for macrofinancial and bank specific shocks that have similar...

Turkey’s current account deficit widened to almost 10% of GDP in 2011 and has been narrowing only gradually since. An important question is to what extent Turkey’s current account deficit is excessive. To explore this issue, one needs to establish benchmarks. In this paper current account...

We study the impact of debt maturity management in an economy where monetary policy is 'passive' and subservient to fiscal policy. We setup a tractable model, to characterize analytically the dynamics of in ation, as well as other macroeconomic variables, showing their dependence on the monetary...

The COVID-19 pandemic led to a sharp contraction of economic activity in the euro area (and worldwide). Its anatomy differs strongly from other crises in recent history. We analyse the short-term economic effects of the COVID-19 shock through the lens of an estimated DSGE model. We augment the...

This paper develops Bayesian econometric methods for posterior inference in non-parametric mixed frequency VARs using additive regression trees. We argue that regression tree models are ideally suited for macroeconomic nowcasting in the face of extreme observations, for instance those produced...

This paper proposes a piecewise-linear Kalman filter (PKF) to estimate DSGE models with occasionally binding constraints. This method expands the set of models suitable for nonlinear estimation. It straightforwardly handles missing data, non-singularity (more shocks than observed time series),...

We point out that the simple slice sampler generates chains that are correlation-free when the target distribution is centrally symmetric. This property explains several results in the literature about the relative performance of the simple and product slice samplers. We exploit it to improve...