This paper deals with Finnish bankruptcies.It shows that bankruptcies are strongly related to the business cycle and that they are perhaps even more strongly related to indebtedness, real interest rates and asset prices.The importance of these financial factors probably increased when the...

This paper examines the relationships between financial and nonfinancial variables in three Nordic countries (Finland, Norway and Sweden).We try to find out whether there exists some kind of dichotomy between these two sets of variables, both in terms of levels of variables and the respective...

This paper contains a description of a small quarterly forecasting model for the Finnish economy.We evaluate the forecasting properties of the model by means of stochastic simulation involving both the endogenous and exogenous variables of the model.The simulations allow us to identify and...

This paper provides an answer to the question of how to improve the forecasting performance of a macro model to better account for economic developments and how to evaluate the forecasting uncertainty.The main tool in this assessment is stochastic simulation.Stochastic simulations in this paper...

Using information from a variety of sources, including our own estimates from quarterly data for each of the countries over the period 1972-1997, this paper suggests that the exchange rate will play an important role in the transmission of the impact of monetary policy through to the real...

This paper highlights the implications for EU macroeconomic policy at a relatively disaggregated level when key economic relationships are nonlinear or asymmetric.Using data for the EU and OECD countries we show that there are considerable non-linearities and asymmetries in the Phillips and Okun...

This paper provides an exposition of the nature, means of estimation and uses of Financial Conditions Indexes (FCIs) and their relationship to the more common Monetary Conditions Indexes (MCIs) that are used by market analysts, international organisations and central banks.Using panel datasets...

Using quarterly data for the period since 1987 this paper explores, in the context of a small model of the EU economy, the degree to which monetary policy has been asymmetric.It shows in particular that monetary policy has been much more responsive to threats that inflation would lie outside the...

An obvious answer to this question is the capital-skill complementarity hypothesis originally proposed by Zwi Griliches (1969). But the relatively poor performance of this hypothesis suggests that other explanations are needed. Here we consider the labour union behaviour in the wage bargaining...

This paper analyses the role of inflation expectations in the euro area. On one hand, the question is how inflation expectations affect both inflation and output,and, on the other hand, how inflation expectations reflect developments in these variables. The analyses make use of a simple VAR...