This paper studies forecasts errors at the micro level using two alternative survey data sets. The main focus is on inflation and real GDP growth forecasts in the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters. For comparison, inflation forecasts in the US Survey of Professional Forecasters are also...

This paper compares the GMM and measured expectations in estimating the conventional New Keynesian macro model for the Euro area and the United States. The use of measured expectations strongly reduces the importance of lagged output and inflation terms.

The relationship between suicide and business cycles is analysed using long Finnish time series for the period 1878-1994. The results clearly show that suicide increases along with age and is related to both GDP growth (inversely), bankruptcies and unemployment.

This paper analyzes the use of cash in the Euro area. It attempts to give at least a partial answer to the question of whether cash is predominantly used in the shadow economy and whether, consequently, the behavior of cash balances is useful in monitoring changes in the shadow economy. The...

It is well-known that estimates of fiscal policy effects differ a lot. In this paper we try get some idea of the magnitude of these differences and the underlying reasons for these differences. In the European Monetary Union we face wide cross-country differences in fiscal institutions and key...

This paper provides an empirical test for the hypothesis that suicides are related to economic determinants. More precisely a hypothesis is tested that changes in the suicide rate are determined by changes in the expected growth rate of income. This hypothesis is tested with an error-correction...

This paper studies professional forecasts on a micro level using three alternative data sets. The analysis is mainly based on the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasts for the euro area, but for comparison, Consensus Economics survey and the Survey of Professional Forecasts for the US are also...

This paper evaluates the quality of survey forecasts, their accuracy and unbiasedness, and their overall consistency. The paper also tries to find out whether the relationships between economic variables are the same in survey data and in the actual data. In other words we analyze whether the...

Purpose The purpose of this paper is to investigate the determinants of aggregate suicides in 15 OECD countries during 1960-2010 using an economic model where changes in the welfare of consumers play the critical role for determining the number of suicides. Design/methodology/approach The...

We model banks’ loan losses with a panel of European countries for the period 1982–2012 using three country-specific macro variables: output growth shocks, real interest rates, and a measure of excessive private sector indebtedness. We find that a drop in output has an intensified impact on...