The Brazilian economy in 2015 was afflicted by a lethal combination of decelerating activity and accelerating inflation. Expectations for 2016 are equally or even more adverse, since the effects of rising unemployment emerge only after a lag. The domestic debate has pitted analysts who believe...

This paper proposes an empirical framework to estimate Okun's law which focuses on structural breaks and threshold nonlinearity. We use sequentially the Bai and Perron's (1998, 2003) structural break and threshold methodology to enable regime-dependent as well as threshold-dependent changes in...

This paper applies Tian's liquidity risk model to analysis the liquidity shocks to the banking industry during the Great Depression. The weekly change of banks' balance sheet shows banks' liquidity preference was changed significantly during 1920s. Call-loans, functioned as today's shadow...

In modern economies, sharp increases in unemployment from major adverse shocks result in long periods of abnormal unemployment and low output. This chapter investigates the processes that account for these persistent slumps. The data are from the economy of the United States, and the discussion...

This paper creates a simple model to describe the relationships between, banks, mortgage agencies, mortgage arrangers, and aspiring home owners. Using this model, the author illustrates how slight changes in real estate appreciation assumptions would reverberate through the collateralized debt...