Posts
-
-
January 13, 2014
Business Outlook Survey - Winter 2013-14
The winter Business Outlook Survey provides some positive signs for the economic outlook, notably for exports and investment, although responses do not yet appear to suggest a significant strengthening. For many businesses, weak demand and domestic uncertainty continue to temper sales expectations and expansion plans. -
January 13, 2014
Senior Loan Officer Survey - Fourth-Quarter 2013
The survey, conducted between 9 and 16 December, pointed to a continued slight easing in overall business-lending conditions during the fourth quarter of 2013. -
-
-
-
-
Cash Management and Payment Choices: A Simulation Model with International Comparisons
Despite various payment innovations, today, cash is still heavily used to pay for low-value purchases. This paper develops a simulation model to test whether standard implications of the theory on cash management and payment choices can explain the use of payment instruments by transaction size. -
Do Oil Price Increases Cause Higher Food Prices?
U.S. retail food price increases in recent years may seem large in nominal terms, but after adjusting for inflation have been quite modest even after the change in U.S. biofuel policies in 2006. In contrast, increases in the real prices of corn, soybeans, wheat and rice received by U.S. farmers have been more substantial and can be linked in part to increases in the real price of oil. -
Regime Switches in the Risk-Return Trade-Off
This paper deals with the estimation of the risk-return trade-off. We use a MIDAS model for the conditional variance and allow for possible switches in the risk-return relation through a Markov-switching specification.