DSGE models are a prominent tool for forecasting at central banks and the competitive forecasting performance of these models relative to alternatives--including official forecasts--has been documented. When evaluating DSGE models on an absolute basis, however, we find that the benchmark...

In the econometric literature simulation techniques are suggested for estimating standard errors of forecasts, especially in case of nonlinear models, where explicit analytic formulae are not available. For this purpose analytic simulation on coefficients, Monte Carlo on coefficients, Monte...

FIML estimates of a simultaneous equation econometric model can be obtained by iterating to convergence an instrumental variables formula that is perfectly consistent with the intuitive textbook-type interpretation of efficient instruments: instruments for an equation must be uncorrelated with...

In this paper, I analyze the business cycle properties of remittances and output series for three pairs of countries: United States-Mexico, United States-El Salvador, and Germany-Turkey. Using an unobserved components state-space model (via the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition), I decompose the...

Are structural vector autoregressions (VARs) useful for discriminating between macro models? Recent assessments of VARs have shown that these statistical methods have adequate size properties. In other words, in simulation exercises, VARs will only infrequently reject the true data generating...

Superseded by Working Paper 12-20 ; The authors study the rise in U.S. manufacturing exports from 1987 to 2002 through the lens of a monopolistically competitive model with heterogeneous producers and sunk costs of exporting. Using the model, they infer that iceberg costs fell nearly 27 percent...

This paper quantifies the effects of two short-run fiscal policies, a temporary tax cut and a temporary rebate transfer, that are intended to stimulate economic activity. A reduction in income taxation provides immediate incentives to work and save more, raising aggregate output and consumption....

The aim of this paper is to improve our understanding of the empirical determinants of firm growth by extending the literature to include new groups of variables, namely sunk costs, financial structure and multinationality as well as by using more appropriate econometric techniques.

This working paper aims to stress the role of the institutional capital and its components, as primary factors, in economic results at the national level, using adequate measurement indicators and econometric models. For this purpose, we analysed the following aspects: the definition of...

Macroeconomic forecasts are frequently produced, published, discussed and used. The formal evaluation of such forecasts has a long research history. Recently, a new angle to the evaluation of forecasts has been addressed, and in this review we analyse some recent developments from that...