This paper assesses the prospects of a 2021 time bomb in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) failures triggered by the generous support policies enacted during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. Policies implemented in 2020, on their own, do not create a 2021 time bomb for SMEs. Rather, business...

Macroeconomics makes extensive use of concepts for which there are no observed data. Empirical estimates of such unobservable variables - core inflation is one example - have to be estimated from observed data. The data decomposition tool helps identify the contribution of each piece of observed...

Fluctuations in migration are a significant feature of New Zealand's economy. This note reports results of statistical modelling that analyses the relationship between permanent and long-term migration (and its components) and developments in the housing market.

We study the effects of fiscal policy in response to the COVID-19 pandemic at the firm, sector, country and global levels. First, we estimate the impact of COVID-19 and policy responses on small and medium-sized enterprise (SME) business failures. We combine firm-level financial data from 50...

This paper assesses the prospects of a 2021 time bomb in small and medium-sized enterprises (SME) failures triggered by the generous support policies enacted during the 2020 COVID-19 crisis. Policies implemented in 2020, on their own, do not create a 2021 time bomb for SMEs. Rather, business...

I provide evidence that portfolio equity inflows can have expansionary effects on GDP and inflation if not offset by monetary policy. I use a shift-share instrument to estimate equity inflows based on plausibly exogenous timing of inflows into mutual funds with heterogeneous country portfolios....

We study the effects of financial frictions on firm exit when firms face large liquidity shocks. We develop a simple model of firm cost-minimization that introduces a financial friction that limits firms' borrowing capacity to smooth temporary shocks to liquidity. In this framework, firm exit...