This paper clarifies the empirical source of the debate on the effect of technology shocks on hours worked. We find that the contrasting conclusions from levels and differenced VAR specifications can be explained by a small, but important, low frequency co-movement between hours worked and...

This paper revisits the issue of identification of macroeconomic shocks in ASEAN countries using an alternative identification scheme where the aggregate demand and supply shocks are allowed to be correlated. Applying the technique of Cover et al (2006) within a bivariate Structural VAR model,...

We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which a set of variables is information-ally sufficient, i.e. contains enough information to estimate the structural shocks with a VAR model. Based on such conditions, we provide a procedure to test for informational sufficiency. If sufficiency...

This paper develops a 9-dimensional SVAR to investigate the sources of the U.S. business cycle. We extend the standard set of identified shocks to include unexpected changes in commodity prices. Our main result is that commodity price shocks are a very important driving force of macroeconomic...

This paper develops a 9-dimensional SVAR to investigate the sources of the U.S. business cycle. We extend the standard set of identified shocks to include unexpected changes in commodity prices. Our main result is that commodity price shocks are a very important driving force of macroeconomic...

We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which a set of variables is informationally sufficient, i.e. it contains enough information to estimate the structural shocks with a VAR model. Based on such conditions, we suggest a procedure to test for informational sufficiency. Moreover, we...

We derive necessary and sufficient conditions under which a set of variables is informationally sufficient, i.e. it contains enough information to estimate the structural shocks with a VAR model. Based on such conditions, we suggest a procedure to test for informational sufficiency. Moreover, we...

This paper evaluates the relative importance of commodity price shocks in the U.S. business cycle. Therefore, we extend the standard set of business cycle shocks to include unexpected changes in commodity prices. The resulting SVAR shows that commodity price shocks are a very important driving...

A close examination of the MENA region economies reveals a number of fundamental sources of macroeconomic fluctuations. These include economic factors such as exchange rate instability, large public debt, current account deficits, and escalation of inflation. The political factors such as...

Recent empirical literature delivered, based on different structural VAR approaches, controversial results concerning the role of anticipated technology-news-shocks in business cycle fluctuations. We deal with this controversy and investigate (i) the extent to thich two prominent structural VAR...