We use the Chinese experience between 1867 and 1910 to illustrate how the volatility of vehicle currencies affects trade. Today's widespread vehicle currency is the dollar. However, the macroeconomic effects of this use of the dollar have rarely been addressed. This is partly due to...

In the present paper, we build a bivariate semiparametric dynamic panel model to reproduce the joint dynamics of sovereign ratings and government bond yields. While the individual equations resemble Pesaran-type cointegration models, we allow for different long-run relationships in both...

While the long run relation between money and inflation is well established, empirical evidence on the adjustment to the long run equilibrium is very heterogeneous. In this paper, we show that the development of US consumer price inflation between 1960Q1 and 2005Q4 is strongly driven by money...

The signals approach as an early warning system has been fairly successful in detecting crises, but it has so far failed to gain popularity in the scientific community because it does not distinguish between randomly achieved in-sample fit and true predictive power. To overcome this obstacle, we...

This paper analyzes the role of common data problems when identifying structural breaks in small samples. Most notably, we survey small sample properties of the most commonly applied endogenous break tests developed by Brown, Durbin, and Evans (1975) and Zeileis (2004), Nyblom (1989) and Hansen...

In the tradition of Romer and Romer (2000), this paper compares staff forecasts of the Federal Reserve (Fed) and the European Central Bank (ECB) for inflation and output with corresponding private forecasts. Standard tests show that the Fed and less so the ECB have a considerable information...

While the long-run relation between money and inflation as predicted by the quantity theory is well established, empirical studies of the short-run adjustment process have been inconclusive at best. The literature regarding the validity of the quantity theory within a given economy is mixed....

Due to the recent financial crisis, the interest in econometric models that allow to incorporate binary variables (such as the occurrence of a crisis) experienced a huge surge. This paper evaluates the performance of the Qual VAR, i.e. a VAR model including a latent variable that governs the...

Ende 2009 hat die Weltwirtschaft wieder vorsichtig Tritt gefasst. Im dritten Quartal nahm die gesamtwirtschaftliche Produktion in den USA und im Euroraum wieder zu, in Japan schon das ganze Sommerhalbjahr über. Der japanische Export profitiert von der besonders kräftigen Erholung der...

Die weltwirtschaftliche Erholung wird sich im Jahr 2010 weiter fortsetzen. Besonders hoch ist die Dynamik in den asiatischen Volkswirtschaften. Auch in den USA erholt sich die wirtschaftliche Aktivität trotz weiterhin bremsender Einflüsse aus dem Immobiliensektor und vom Arbeitsmarkt so weit,...