There has been recently increasing interest in the establishment of a common currency area in East Asia in the aftermath of the East Asian financial crisis. In this paper, we examine the desirability and feasibility of forming a currency area in the region by checking the symmetry of shocks as...

We set out a reference chronology for annual UK inflation, identifying nine complete cycles between 1958 and 1990. Inflation over this period is asymmetric, falling more quickly than it rises. Leading indicators are also proposed, with composite shorter and longer leading indicators constructed....

Shocks to the marginal efficiency of investment are the most important drivers of business cycle fluctuations in US output and hours. Moreover, these disturbances drive prices higher in expansions, like a textbook demand shock. We reach these conclusions by estimating a DSGE model with several...

We survey the recent literature on learning in financial markets. Our main theme is that many financial market phenomena that appear puzzling at first sight are easier to understand once we recognize that parameters in financial models are uncertain and subject to learning. We discuss phenomena...

This paper develops methods for Stochastic Search Variable Selection (currently popular with regression and Vector Autoregressive models) for Vector Error Correction models where there are many possible restrictions on the cointegration space. We show how this allows the researcher to begin with...

This discussion paper resulted in an article in the <I>Journal of Macroeconomics</I> (2010). Volume 32(1), 169-184.<P> We investigate the importance of aggregate and consumer-specific or idiosyncratic labour income risk for aggregate consumption changes in the US over the period 1952-2001. Theoretically,...</p></i>