International topics
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Labour Share Fluctuations in Emerging Markets: The Role of the Cost of Borrowing
This paper contributes to the literature by documenting labour income share fluctuations in emerging-market economies and proposing an explanation for them. Time-series data indicate that emerging markets differ from developed markets in terms of changes in the labour share over the business cycle. -
Are There Gains from Pooling Real-Time Oil Price Forecasts?
The answer as to whether there are gains from pooling real-time oil price forecasts depends on the objective. The approach of combining five of the leading forecasting models with equal weights dominates the strategy of selecting one model and using it for all horizons up to two years. -
International Transmission Channels of U.S. Quantitative Easing: Evidence from Canada
The U.S. Federal Reserve responded to the great recession by reducing policy rates to the effective lower bound. In order to provide further monetary stimulus, they subsequently conducted large-scale asset purchases, quadrupling their balance sheet in the process. -
What Does the Convenience Yield Curve Tell Us about the Crude Oil Market?
Using the prices of crude oil futures contracts, we construct the term structure of crude oil convenience yields out to one-year maturity. The crude oil convenience yield can be interpreted as the interest rate, denominated in barrels of oil, for borrowing a single barrel of oil, and it measures the value of storing crude oil over the borrowing period. -
Global Inflation Dynamics in the Post-Crisis Period: What Explains the Twin Puzzle?
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. -
Search Frictions, Financial Frictions and Labour Market Fluctuations in Emerging Markets
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. -
Commodity Price Co-Movement and Global Economic Activity
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. -
Capital Flows and Macroprudential Policies - A Multilateral Assessment of Effectiveness and Externalities
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. -
Forecasting Short-Term Real GDP Growth in the Euro Area and Japan Using Unrestricted MIDAS Regressions
In this paper, the authors develop a new tool to improve the short-term forecasting of real GDP growth in the euro area and Japan. This new tool, which uses unrestricted mixed-data sampling (U-MIDAS) regressions, allows an evaluation of the usefulness of a wide range of indicators in predicting short-term real GDP growth.