This paper outlines important lessons for monetary policy. In particular, the role of inflation targeting, which was much acclaimed prior to the financial crisis and since then has not lost much of its endorsement, is critically reviewed. Ignoring the relation between monetary policy and asset...

Why has Swiss export performance been so strong during the past quarters despite the strong appreciation of the CHF? In this paper, we use historical data on exchange rates and trade at the sectoral level to document that a contributing factor behind the limited impact of the exchange rate is...

The effects of oil shocks on output volatility through international transport costs are investigated in an open-economy DSGE model. Two versions of the model, with and without international transport costs, are structurally estimated for the U.S. economy by a Bayesian approach for moving...

With integrated trade and financial markets, a collapse in aggregate demand in a large country can cause "natural real interest rates" to fall below zero in all countries, giving rise to a global "liquidity trap." This paper explores the optimal policy response to this type of shock, when...

The recent U.S. consumption boom and the subsequent surge in mortgage defaults have been linked to mortgage equity withdrawals (MEWs). MEWs are correlated with covariates consistent with a permanent income framework augmented for credit-constraints. Nevertheless, many households are financially...

Since the 1970s, the poverty rate has remained largely unchanged among Hispanics but has declined among non-Hispanic whites and blacks, particularly before the onset of the recent recession. The influx of large numbers of immigrants partially explains why poverty rates have not fallen over time...

We measure asymmetries in the distribution of bond returns and exchange rates and test their statistical significance. Asymmetries are sizable when measured by the coefficient of skewness, a measure that is highly affected by outliers. In contrast, robustly measured asymmetries to outliers often...

This paper presents a sentiment-based explanation of the forward premium puzzle. Agents over- or underestimate the growth rate of the economy. All else equal, when perceived domestic growth is higher than perceived foreign growth, the domestic interest rate is higher than the foreign interest...

Recent studies document the deteriorating performance of forecasting models during the Great Moderation. This conversely implies that forecastability is higher in the preceding era, when the economy was unexpectedly volatile. We offer an explanation for this phenomenon in the context of...

How are Asian financial markets interlinked and how are they linked to markets in developed countries? What is the main driver of fluctuations in Asian financial markets as well as real economic activities? In order to answer these questions, we estimate the spillover index proposed by Diebold...