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Large fluctuations in commodity prices since the 2000s are a renewed concern among policymakers about price stability. This paper investigates the effects of commodity price shocks on headline inflation with a cross-country panel. We find that the effects of commodity price shocks on inflation virtually disappear within about one year after the shock. This transitory effect suggests a low risk of a persistent second-round effect on inflation. While the effect on the price level varies across country groups, the transitory effect is fairly robust. We also allow for the possibility that the effect of commodity price shocks may vary, depending on inflation regimes. Even in this case, we observe the transitory effects at least in countries with exchange-rate flexibility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Using a small Bayesian dynamic factor model of the euro area, we estimate the deviations of output from its trend that are consistent with the behavior of inflation. We label these deviations the output gap. In order to pin down the features of the model, we evaluate the accuracy of real‐time inflation forecasts from different model specifications. The version that forecasts inflation best implies that after the 2011 sovereign debt crisis, the output gap in the euro area has been much larger than the official estimates. Versions featuring a secular stagnation‐like slowdown in trend growth, and hence a small output gap after 2011, do not adequately capture the inflation developments. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We forecast the realized volatility of crude oil futures market using the heterogeneous autoregressive model for realized volatility and its various extensions. Out-of-sample findings indicate that the inclusion of jumps does not improve the forecasting accuracy of the volatility models, whereas the “leverage effect” pertaining to the difference between positive and negative realized semi-variances can significantly improve the forecasting accuracy in predicting the short- and medium-term volatility. However, the signed jump variations and its decomposition couldn’t significantly enhance the models’ forecasting accuracy on the long-term volatility. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We produce predictions of the current state of the Indonesian economy by estimating a dynamic factor model on a dataset of 11 indicators (followed closely by market operators) over the 2002-2014 period. Besides the standard difficulties associated with constructing timely indicators of current economic conditions, Indonesia presents additional challenges typical to emerging market economies where data are often scant and unreliable. By means of a pseudo-real-time forecasting exercise, we show that our model outperforms univariate benchmarks, and it does comparably well with predictions of market operators. Finally, we show that when quality of data is low, a careful selection of indicators is crucial for better forecast performance. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We study the forecasting performance of three alternative large data forecasting approaches. These three approaches handle the dimensionality problem evoked by a large dataset by compressing its informational content, yet at different stages of the forecasting process. We consider different factor models, a large Bayesian vector autoregression and model averaging techniques, where the data compression takes place before, during and after the estimation of the respective forecasting models. We use a quarterly dataset for Germany that consists of 123 variables and find that overall the large Bayesian vector autoregression and the Bayesian factor augmented vector autoregression provide the most precise forecasts for a set of 11 core macroeconomic variables. Further, we find that the performance of these two models is very robust to the exact specification of the forecasting model. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Debt dynamics have been a central theme of discussioins in the “Great Recession”. The aim of the present paper is to study the persistence of sovereign debt within a business cycle perspective. In order to achieve this result, a Keynesian framework is considered where aggregate demand fluctuations generate quantity adjustment within a deflationary environment. Furthermore a regime switching technique, capable of generating bounded and robust endogenous fluctuations, is introduced. The piecewise linearity of the model, along with its discontinuities, obliges to operate with a low dimensional system in order to obtain two analytical results: the robustness of bounded fluctuations, and hence of debt persistence, and the driving role of growth. These results are extended to higher dimensions by means of simulations. Also in this case, the effectiveness of policies is confirmed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The paper considers two rival models referring to the new macroeconomic consensus: a standard three-equation model of the New-Keynesian variety versus dynamic adjustments of a business and an inflation climate in an ‘Old-Keynesian’ tradition. Over the two subperiods of the Great Inflation and Great Moderation, both of them are estimated by the method of simulated moments. An innovative feature is here that the moments do not only include the autocovariances up to eight lags of quarterly output, inflation and the interest rate, but optionally also a measure of the raggedness of the three variables. In short, the performance of the Old-Keynesian model is very satisfactory and similar to the New-Keynesian model, or even better. In particular, the Old-Keynesian model is better suited to match the new moments without deteriorating the original second moments too much. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper compares different solution methods for computing the equilibrium of dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models with rare disasters along the lines of those proposed by Rietz (1988), Barro (2006), Gabaix (2012), and Gourio (2012). DSGE models with rare disasters require solution methods that can handle the large nonlinearities triggered by low‐probability, high‐impact events with accuracy and speed. We solve a standard New Keynesian model with Epstein–Zin preferences and time‐varying disaster risk with perturbation, Taylor projection, and Smolyak collocation. Our main finding is that Taylor projection delivers the best accuracy/speed tradeoff among the tested solutions. We also document that even third‐order perturbations may generate solutions that suffer from accuracy problems and that Smolyak collocation can be costly in terms of run time and memory requirements. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we show that successful policy aimed at enhancing economic growth in the long run must be based on policies which improve human capital and technological progress. This is applied to Slovenia, a small open economy in the European Union and the Euro Area. In particular, we investigate how fiscal policies should be designed to support economic growth without violating the European Union Stability and Growth Pact. Using the SLOPOL10 model, an econometric model of the Slovenian economy, we analyse the effects of different fiscal policies in Slovenia over the next few years by means of simulations. The fiscal policy multipliers of the Slovenian economy are small and short-lived, which renders demand-side expansionary fiscal policies inappropriate as a means of achieving higher growth. However, if an increase in government expenditures directly related to technological progress is implemented (such as better funding for tertiary education or subsidies for firms’ investments in research and development), this can trigger a path of output which is permanently higher than that of the baseline simulation. Reducing income taxes and social security contributions has strong positive effects on employment. This result shows that the key to prosperity and sustained growth is investment in human capital and technology, also for a small open economy like Slovenia. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This study evaluates the economic impact of a shift towards renewable electricity mix in the Netherlands using the neo-Keynesian CGEM ThreeME (Multi-sector Macroeconomic Model for the Evaluation of Environmental and Energy policy). This scenario has been inspired by the Urgenda's report ‘Energy 100% Sustainable in the Netherlands by 2030’, which have been quantified using the Energy Transition Model (ETM) developed by Quintel. Using the output of the ETM regarding the change in the electricity generation shares as input in ThreeME, we derive the impact in terms of key economic variables (GDP, employment, investment, value-added, prices, trade, tax revenue, etc.). We find that transition to renewable energy may have a positive impact on the Dutch economy, creating almost 50 000 new jobs by 2030 and adding almost 1% of gross domestic product. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this article, we propose a novel methodology to construct new uncertainty and disagreement measures for the long-term inflation rate with the use of micro data of Treasury auctions. We employ individual bids submitted in Treasury auctions for nominal and inflation indexed bonds. We argue that these newly formed indicators do not have the problems associated with the survey and market-based uncertainty and disagreement measures. We also focus on the interactions of our proposed measures for inflation rate by comparing the measures commonly used in the literature. The findings of this article are believed to enhance the effectiveness of policy-making by introducing new proxies for crucial economic variables and also by providing the opportunity for other emerging economies with inadequate surveys to construct historical uncertainty and disagreement measures for inflation rates. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate the circumstances in which business cycle forecasting is beneficial for business by addressing both the short-run and the long-run aspects. For an assessment of short-run forecasting we make a distinction between using publicly available information of cycle probabilities and the use of resources to sharpen this outlook. A sharpened forecast can pay off because it helps the firm to optimally select its output mix. For a long-run perspective we show that firms whose optimal level of operation varies with varying selling prices gain from an accurate assessment of the likelihood of the states of expansion and recession. Petroleum refining in the U.S. is econometrically studied as an exemplary industry. The results document cyclical regularities that indicate that forecasting is advantageous for firms in this industry. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: Sticky‐price models suggest that capital investment shocks are an important driver of business cycle fluctuations. Despite quantitative importance in explaining business cycles, a comovement problem emerges because the shocks generate intertemporal substitution effects away from consumption toward investment. This paper resolves the problem by extending the standard sticky‐price model to a two‐sector model with consumer durable services. When durable goods are used as investment in capital and consumer durables, positive capital investment shocks also generate intratemporal substitution effects away from consumer durable services toward nondurable consumption that dominates intertemporal effects. Consequently, consumption increases, and the comovement problem is resolved. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: We show that typical tests of whether forecasters herd will falsely indicate herding behavior for a variety of types of behavior and forecasting environments that give rise to disagreement among forecasters. We establish that forecasters will appear to herd if differences between them reflect noise as opposed to private information, or if they arise from informational rigidities. Noise can have a behavioral interpretation and if so will depend on the behavioral model under consideration. An application of the herding tests to U.S. quarterly survey forecasts of inflation and output growth data 1981–2013 does not support herding behavior. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this paper, we investigate whether there are benefits in disaggregating GDP into its components when nowcasting GDP. To answer this question, we conduct a realistic out-of-sample experiment that deals with the most prominent problems in short-term forecasting: mixed frequencies, ragged-edge data, asynchronous data releases and a large set of potential information. We compare a direct leading indicator-based GDP forecast with two bottom-up procedures—that is, forecasting GDP components from the production side or from the demand side. Generally, we find that the direct forecast performs relatively well. Among the disaggregated procedures, the production side seems to be better suited than the demand side to form a disaggregated GDP nowcast. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the responses of house prices and household credit to monetary policy shocks in Norway, using Bayesian structural VAR models. The analysis indicates that the effect of a monetary policy shock on house prices is large, while the effect on household credit is muted. This is consistent with a relatively small refinancing rate (refinancing rate refers to the share of outstanding mortgages that are refinanced each period due to changes in, for example, house prices or interest rate) of the mortgage stock each quarter. Using monetary policy to guard against financial instability by mitigating property-price movements may prove effective, but trying to mitigate household credit may prove costly in terms of GDP and inflation variation. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Reflecting the importance of commodities for the Australian economy, we construct a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model of the Australian economy with a commodity sector. We assess whether its forecasts can be improved by using it as a prior for an empirical Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR). We find that the forecasts from the BVAR tend to be more accurate than those from the DSGE model. Nevertheless, for output growth these forecasts do not outperform benchmark models, such as a small open economy BVAR estimated using the standard priors for forecasting. A Bayesian factor augmented vector autoregression produces the most accurate near-term inflation forecasts. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We analyse the robust performance of the German labour market in the Great Recession, and investigate to what extent cyclical reductions in productivity and working time cushioned employment losses. We present stylized facts and apply timeseries techniques to estimate counterfactual developments. Our results show that the magnitude of temporary working-time reductions was extraordinarily pronounced, whereas cyclical reductions in hourly productivity were in line with historical evidence. Using detailed information on instruments for the adjustment of working time, we uncover the institutional mechanisms behind this strong reduction. While shorttime work played a significant role, even more important were working-time accounts and discretionary variations in regular working time, two new instruments which gained widespread use in the decade before the Great Recession. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Adaptive learning introduces persistence in the evolution of agents’ beliefs over time, helping explain why economies present sluggish adjustments towards equilibrium. The pace of this learning process is directly determined by the gain parameter. We document and evaluate gain calibrations for a broad range of model specifications with macroeconomic data, also developing alternative approaches to the endogenous determination of time-varying gains in real-time. Our key findings are that learning gains are higher for inflation than for output growth and interest rates, and that calibrations to match survey forecasts are lower than those derived according to forecasting performance, suggesting some degree of bounded rationality in the speed with which agents update their beliefs. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Resumen Se obtiene el impacto de los determinantes de la tasa de morosidad de Ecuador y Colombia, para aplicarlos a pruebas de tensión. Los modelos estimados ARIMAX sugieren que en Ecuador los shocks se transmiten con rapidez. La morosidad de ambos países es sensible negativamente a la liquidez (factor más importante) y a la tasa de intermediación, pero sus impactos y la rapidez de transmisión son diferentes. El precio del petróleo, volumen de crédito y actividad económica son determinantes relevantes para Ecuador. En Colombia, el shock bursátil es negativo e inmediato, los shocks de importaciones se transmiten a corto y mediano plazo. Los impactos de la producción manufacturera son más tardíos. Esta es la primera investigación empírica que compara, entre ambos países, el impacto de cada factor en la morosidad. Los modelos contribuyen para plantear políticas económicas y de gestión que produzcan impactos en el desempeño de la morosidad. The impact of nonperforming loans determinants of Ecuador and Colombia is obtained in order to apply them to stress tests. Estimated ARIMAX models suggest that in Ecuador shocks are rapidly transmitted. The delinquency of both countries is negatively sensitive to liquidity (the most important factor) and the intermediation rate, but their impacts and the speed of transmission are different. In Ecuador, the price of oil, volume of credit and economic activity are important determinants. In Colombia, the stock market shock is negative and immediate; import shocks are the most important and it are transmitted in the short and medium term. The impacts of manufacturing production occur later. This is the first empirical research that compares, between both countries, the impact of each factor on nonperforming loans. The models contribute to propose economic and management policies that produce impacts on the performance of nonperforming loans. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a full characterization of inflation rate forecasts using the mean values from Consensus Economics for a sample of 14 Latin American countries between 1989 and 2014. It also assesses the performance of inflation rate forecasts around business cycles’ turning points. Results show that inflation forecasts in the region display the standard property that as the forecast horizon shortens accuracy improves. On average, forecasters underpredict inflation, but this masks very different country experiences. We find evidence point to biasedness of inflation forecasts for year-ahead forecasts but not for current year. Tests’ results point to forecast inefficiency which is also evidenced by a tendency to smooth them between revisions. Focusing on business cycle turning points, forecasters tend to slightly underpredict the inflation rate and the extent of underprediction increases during recessions. The hypothesis of forecast efficiency is overwhelmingly rejected both during recessions and recoveries. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We propose a new framework for understanding the effectiveness of central bank announcements when firms have heterogeneous inflation expectations. Expectations are updated through social dynamics and, with heterogeneity, not all firms choose to operate, putting downward pressure on realized inflation. Our model rationalizes why countries stuck at the zero lower bound have had a hard time increasing inflation without being aggressive. The same model also predicts that announcing an abrupt target to disinflate will cause inflation to undershoot the target, whereas announcing gradual targets will not. We present new empirical evidence that corroborates this prediction. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Although oil price shocks have long been viewed as one of the leading candidates for explaining U.S. recessions, surprisingly little is known about the extent to which oil price shocks explain recessions. We provide a formal analysis of this question with special attention to the possible role of net oil price increases in amplifying the transmission of oil price shocks. We quantify the conditional effect of oil price shocks in the net oil price increase model for all episodes of net oil price increases since the mid-1970s, analyze its determinants, and show that the linear model fits the data better. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The article provides an analysis of the development of NAIRU and the economic cycle in the labour market at the level of the economy and in selected sectors in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. The analysis focuses on estimation of the time-varying NAIRU with the use of the method of the stochastic trend. The difference between the estimated NAIRU values and the real unemployment rates is used for characterisation of the economic cycle in the labour market. The estimated phases of the cycle are compared with the development of the basic real economy indicators. Unstable periods on the labour market in the economy and in selected sectors of the two countries are localised. The identified leading indicators are used for prediction of the development in the following period. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper investigates the extent of gross premium distributions inequality for life and non-life insurance in Croatia in the period 2000–2012. The number of companies for life insurance was the same in 2000 and 2012, at 17. The number of non-life insurance companies varied between 16 and 24, and was 20 at the end of 2012. The Lorenz curve and nine numerical concentration measures applied mostly show a slight decrease of a moderate concentration for both types of insurance over time, with only the Rosenbluth index being an exception, showing a mild increase of concentration. The concentration of gross premium is slightly stronger for non-life then for life insurance. The standard errors of the trend models for the entropy indexes are smaller, and coefficients of determination are higher for the quadratic compared to the linear trend models for both types of insurances, life and non-life. Since the forecasts’ quality measures for both types of insurance show that the quadratic trend is superior compared to the simple linear trend model, it was used for short-term forecasting of the entropy indexes. The quadratic trend model gave forecasts showing digressive-progressive dynamics for non-life, and progressive-digressive for life insurance entropy indexes. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper first describes financial variables that have been constructed to correspond to various channels in the transmission mechanism. Next, a Bayesian VAR model for the macroeconomy, with priors on the steady states, is augmented with these financial variables and estimated using Swedish data for 1989-2015. The results support three conclusions. First, the financial system is important and the strength of the results is dependent on identification, with the financial variables accounting for 10-25 % of the forecast error variance of Swedish GDP growth. Second, the suggested model produces an earlier signal regarding the probability of recession, compared to a model without financial variables. Third, the model's forecasts for the deep downturn in 2008 and 2009, conditional on the development of the financial variables, outperform a macro-model that lacks financial variables. Furthermore, this improvement in modelling Swedish GDP growth during the financial crisis does not come at the expense of unconditional predictive power. Taken together, the results suggest that the proposed model presents an accessible possibility to analyse the macro-financial linkages and the GDP developments, especially during a financial crisis. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper provides a full characterization of unemployment rate forecasts using the mean values from Consensus Economics for a sample of nine advanced economies between 1989 and 2012. It also assesses the performance of unemployment rate forecasts around business cycles’ turning points. We find evidence for biasedness, inefficiency or information rigidities and lack of accuracy of unemployment rate forecasts and the distribution of projection errors appears to be slightly twisted to over-prediction (which decreases during recession episodes). Additionally, there is a sense of ‘pessimism’ among forecasters during recovery periods. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

We provide evidence on the sticky-information model of Mankiw and Reis () by examining how often individual professional forecasters revise their forecasts. We draw interest rate and unemployment rate forecasts from the monthly Wall Street Journal surveys. We find evidence that forecasters frequently leave forecasts unchanged but revise more often the larger the changes in the information set; additionally, the information sensitivity of revision frequencies increased after 2007. We also find that, on average, forecasters in our sample revise more frequently than found in previous research but that revised forecasts are not consistently more accurate. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In this study, we investigate the predictability of the realized skewness (RSK) and realized kurtosis (RKU) to stock market volatility, that has not been addressed in the existing studies. Out-of-sample results show that RSK, which can significantly improve forecast accuracy in mid- and long-term, is more powerful than RKU in forecasting volatility. Whereas these variables are useless in short-term forecasting. Furthermore, we employ the realized kernel (RK) for the robustness analysis and the conclusions are consistent with the RV measures. Our results are of great importance for portfolio allocation and financial risk management. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

In many countries information on expectations collected through consumer confidence surveys are used in macroeconomic policy formulation. Unfortunately, before doing so, the consistency of responses is often not taken into account, leading to biases creeping in and, in turn, affecting the consistency of the indices hence created. This paper describes how latent class analysis may be used to check the consistency of responses and ensure parsimony in the questionnaire. In particular, we examine how temporal changes may be incorporated into the model. Our methodology is illustrated using three rounds of Consumer Confidence Survey (CCS) conducted by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

We investigate which shocks drive inflation in small open economies. In the first step, we use the structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) approach to identify the global shocks. Second, we regress the disaggregated price indices for selected European economies on the global shocks controlling for the domestic variables. We find that the fluctuations of inflation in the analyzed countries are to large extent determined by the cyclical movements of the domestic output gap however the commodity shock also contributes strongly to inflation variability. The role of the non-commodity global supply shock is less prominent, however, interpreted to some extent as a globalization shock, for most of the analyzed period lowers the inflation. Nonetheless, in the aftermath of the global financial crisis, this shock reversed what may be interpreted as the weakening of the globalization process. [ABSTRACT FROM PUBLISHER]

Forecasting future inflation and nowcasting contemporaneous inflation are difficult. We propose a new and parsimonious model for nowcasting headline and core inflation in the U.S. consumer price index and price index for personal consumption expenditures that relies on relatively few variables. The model's nowcasting accuracy improves as information accumulates over a month or quarter, outperforming statistical benchmarks. In real-time comparisons, the model's headline inflation nowcasts substantially outperform those from the Blue Chip consensus and the Survey of Professional Forecasters. Across all four inflation measures, the model's nowcasting accuracy is comparable to that of the Federal Reserve Board's Greenbook. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]