A core stylized fact of the empirical exchange rate literature is that half-life deviationsof equilibrium real exchange rates from levels implied by Purchasing Power Parity(PPP) are very persistent. Empirical efforts to explain this persistence typicallyproceed along two distinct paths,...

This paper analyses the importance of common factors in shaping non-fuel commodityprice movements for the period 1957-2008. For this purpose, a dynamic factor modelis estimated using Kalman Filtering techniques. Based on this set-up we are able toseparate common and idiosyncratic developments of...

This study looks at real estate price booms and busts in industrialised countries. Itidentifies major and persistent deviations from long term trends for 18 countries andestimates the probabilities of their occurrence using a Random Effects Panel Probitmodel over the period 1980-2007. It finds...

Monetary Policy Committees differ in the way the interest rate proposal is preparedand presented in the policy meeting. In this paper we show analytically how differentarrangements could affect the voting behaviour of individual MPC members andtherefore policy outcomes. We then apply our results...

This paper contributes to the literature on the properties of money and creditindicators for detecting asset price misalignments. After a review of the evidence inthe literature on this issue, the paper discusses the approaches that can be consideredto detect asset price busts. Considering a...

This paper investigates the dynamics of aggregate wages and prices in the UnitedStates (US) and the Euro Area (EA) with a special focus on persistence of real wages,wage and price inflation. The analysis is conducted within a structural vector errorcorrectionmodel, where the structural shocks...

Banks play a role in the corporate governance of firms as well as acting as debtfinanciers around the world. Universal banks can have control over borrowing firmsby representation on the board of directors or by holding shares through direct stakesor institutional holdings. We investigate the...

There is a broad consensus that the quality of the political system and its institutionsare fundamental for a country’s prosperity. The paper focuses on political events inItaly over the past 35 years and asks whether the adoption of the euro in 1999 hashelped insulate Italy’s financial...

We provide the first cross-country evidence of the effect of investment by privateequity firms on innovation, focusing on a sample of European countries and usingKortum and Lerner’s (2000) empirical methodology. Using an 18-country panelcovering the period 1991-2004, we study how private...

Amid the recent commodity price gyrations, policy makers have become increasinglyconcerned in assessing to what extent oil and food price shocks transmit to theinflationary outlook and the real economy. In this paper, we try to tackle this issue bymeans of a Global Vector Autoregressive (GVAR)...