This paper discusses identification, specification, estimation and forecasting for a general class of periodic unobserved components time series models with stochastic trend, seasonal and cycle components. Convenient state space formulations are introduced for exact maximum likelihood...

The authors use first differenced logged quarterly series for the GDP of 29 countries and the euro area to assess the need to use nonlinear models to describe business cycle dynamic behaviour. Their approach is model (estimation)-free, based on testing only. The authors aim to maximize power to...

Some main Norwegian quarterly macroeconomic time series are decomposed into unobserved components within the framework of structural time series models using UCARIMA models. In the most general case we allow for a stationary cyclical component besides a stochastic trend, a stochastic seasonal...

We analyse the decline in output volatility in Germany. A lower level of variance in an autoregressive model of output growth can be either due to a change in the structure of the economy (a change in the propagation mechanism) or a reduced error term variance (reduced impulses). In Germany the...

La littérature sur l'instabilité macroéconomique couvre un champ extrêmement vaste qui se révèle par le spectre très large de mesures utilisées pour appréhender ce phénomène. Le choix de la mesure de l'instabilité macroéconomique apparait généralement peu discuté sous le...

This article tests the Black's hypothesis in five crisis-affected Asian countries (India, Japan, Malaysia, South Korea, and Thailand). The hypothesis posits that economies face a positive relationship between output growth and output volatility. Using monthly data of the industrial production...

Since the Great Recession in 2007-09, U.S. real GDP has failed to return to its previously projected path, a phenomenon widely associated with secular stagnation. We investigate whether this stagnation was due to hysteresis effects from the Great Recession, a persistent negative output gap...

In banking practice, rating transition matrices have become the standard approach of deriving multi-year probabilities of default (PDs) from one-year PDs, the latter normally being available from Basel ratings. Rating transition matrices have gained in importance with the newly adopted IFRS 9...

This paper proposes a simple technical approach for the analytical derivation of Point-in-Time PD (probability of default) forecasts, with minimal data requirements. The inputs required are the current and future Through-the-Cycle PDs of the obligors, their last known default rates, and a...

In this paper, we relax the assumption of constant regime-specific mean growth rates in Hamilton's (1989) two-state Markov-switching model of the business cycle. We introduce a random walk hierarchical prior for each regime-specific mean growth rate and impose a cointegrating relationship...