Staff working papers

• Real-Time Nowcasting of Nominal GDP Under Structural Breaks

  Staff Working Paper 2014-39 William A. Barnett, Marcelle Chauvet, Danilo Leiva-Leon

  This paper provides a framework for the early assessment of current U.S. nominal GDP growth, which has been considered a potential new monetary policy target. The nowcasts are computed using the exact amount of information that policy-makers have available at the time predictions are made. However, real-time information arrives at different frequencies and asynchronously, which poses challenges of mixed frequencies, missing data and ragged edges.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Inflation and prices JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, E, E2, E27, E3, E31, E32

• A New Approach to Infer Changes in the Synchronization of Business Cycle Phases

  Staff Working Paper 2014-38 Danilo Leiva-Leon

  This paper proposes a Markov-switching framework to endogenously identify the following: (1) regimes where economies synchronously enter recessionary and expansionary phases; and (2) regimes where economies are unsynchronized, essentially following independent business cycles.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Econometric and statistical methods, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C3, C32, C4, C45, E, E3, E32

• Predicting Financial Stress Events: A Signal Extraction Approach

  Staff Working Paper 2014-37 Ian Christensen, Fuchun Li

  The objective of this paper is to propose an early warning system that can predict the likelihood of the occurrence of financial stress events within a given period of time. To achieve this goal, the signal extraction approach proposed by Kaminsky, Lizondo and Reinhart (1998) is used to monitor the evolution of a number of economic indicators that tend to exhibit an unusual behaviour in the periods preceding a financial stress event.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, Financial stability JEL Code(s): C, C1, C14, C4, E, E3, E37, E4, E47, F, F3, F36, F37, G, G0, G01, G1, G17

• Global Inflation Dynamics in the Post-Crisis Period: What Explains the Twin Puzzle?

  Staff Working Paper 2014-36 Christian Friedrich

  Inflation dynamics in advanced countries have produced two consecutive puzzles during the years after the global financial crisis. The first puzzle emerged when inflation rates over the period 2009-11 were consistently higher than expected, although economic slack in advanced countries reached its highest level in recent history.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Fiscal policy, Inflation and prices, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E31, E5, F, F4, F41

• Search Frictions, Financial Frictions and Labour Market Fluctuations in Emerging Markets

  Staff Working Paper 2014-35 Sumru Altug, Serdar Kabaca

  This paper examines the role of the extensive and intensive margins of labour input in the context of a business cycle model with a financial friction. We document significant variation in the hours worked per worker for many emerging-market economies. Both employment and hours worked per worker are positively correlated with each other and with output.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Development economics, Interest rates, International topics, Labour markets JEL Code(s): E, E4, E44, F, F4, F41, J, J4, J40

• Housework and Fiscal Expansions

  Staff Working Paper 2014-34 Stefano Gnocchi, Daniela Hauser, Evi Pappa

  We build an otherwise-standard business cycle model with housework, calibrated consistently with data on time use, in order to discipline consumption-hours complementarity and relate its strength to the size of fiscal multipliers.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Fiscal policy JEL Code(s): E, E2, E24, E3, E32, E5, E52, E6, E62

• Competition in the Cryptocurrency Market

  Staff Working Paper 2014-33 Neil Gandal, Hanna Halaburda

  We analyze how network effects affect competition in the nascent cryptocurrency market. We do so by examining the changes over time in exchange rate data among cryptocurrencies.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Digital currencies and fintech JEL Code(s): L, L1

• Commodity Price Co-Movement and Global Economic Activity

  Staff Working Paper 2014-32 Ron Alquist, Olivier Coibion

  Guided by a macroeconomic model in which non-energy commodity prices are endogenously determined, we apply a new factor-based identification strategy to decompose the historical sources of changes in commodity prices and global economic activity.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, F, F4

• Capital Flows and Macroprudential Policies - A Multilateral Assessment of Effectiveness and Externalities

  Staff Working Paper 2014-31 John Beirne, Christian Friedrich

  This paper assesses the effectiveness and associated externalities that arise when macroprudential policies (MPPs) are used to manage international capital flows. Using a sample of up to 139 countries, we examine the impact of eight different MPP measures on cross-border bank flows over the period 1999-2009.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Balance of payments and components, Financial markets, International topics JEL Code(s): F, F3, F5, G, G0, G01, G1, G11

• Information, Amplification and Financial Crisis

  Staff Working Paper 2014-30 Ali Kakhbod, Toni Ahnert

  We propose a parsimonious model of information choice in a global coordination game of regime change that is used to analyze debt crises, bank runs or currency attacks. A change in the publicly available information alters the uncertainty about the behavior of other investors.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Financial institutions, Financial stability JEL Code(s): D, D8, D83, G, G0, G01