We analyze the relationship between firm-specific shocks and aggregate fluctuations. In particular, profitability of firms affected by a negative shock worsens. To the extent that the banks cannot distinguish between aggregate and firm-specific profitability shocks, they will adjust interest...

This paper uses several macroeconomic and financial indicators within a Markov Switching (MS) framework to predict the turning points of the business cycle. The presented model is applied to monthly German real-time data covering the recession and the recovery after the financial crisis. We show...