Stylized facts suggest that output volatility in OECD countries has declined in recent years. However, the causes and the nature of this decline have so far been analyzed mainly for the United States. In this paper, we analyze whether structural breaks in the dynamics and the volatility of the...

The globalization of international financial markets has renewed interest in the measurement of capital mobility. Consumption-based tests such as the Euler equation test are commonly used. These tests, however, are derived under restrictive assumptions on consumer behavior. In this paper, we ask...

This paper elaborates on the relative importance of sectoral shocks for real economic activity in Germany. Implications of multisectoral real business cycle models are examined by resorting to testing techniques based on stock market returns. The empirical evidence is obtained by calculating...

The present paper uses German annual data covering the period 1969-2000 to present evidence on the link between aggregate inflation and the higher-order moments of the distribution of relative price changes. Our empirical findings confirm predictions of contributions to the theoretical...

A contingent claims valuation model which allows to highlight the implications of program trading in spot markets for the pricing of European-style foreign currency options and for the volatility strike structure implicit in these contracts is devoloped. The curvature of the volatility strike...

The effectiveness of the foreign exchange market interventions conducted by the Deutsche Bundesbank during the Louvre period to alter either the level or the volatility of the $/DM spot rate is examined. Volatility quotes implicit in foreign currency options are employed to recover the impact of...