New Indicators for Tracking Growth in Real Time


Book Description

We develop monthly indicators for tracking growth in 32 advanced and emerging-market economies. We test the historical performance of our indicators and find that they do a good job at describing the business cycle. In a recursive out-of-sample forecasting exercise, we find that the indicators generally produce good GDP growth forecasts relative to a range of time series models.




Advances in Monetary Policy Design


Book Description

In response to the recent financial crisis, many countries have initiated monetary stimulus packages. Maintaining proper measures of monetary aggregates is of particular importance for such economic policies. However, many central banks worldwide use the simple-sum monetary indexes, which ignore the liquidity characteristics of financial assets. Using the simple-sum indexes can produce misleading information, especially for broad monetary aggregates within which financial assets are not likely to be perfect substitutes. This book focuses on alternative economic stability indicators, and outlines the methods for constructing proper monetary and financial indicators – known as Divisia indexes. The Divisia monetary indexes are designed to measure accurately the liquidity in the economy by assigning different weights to different financial assets according to their usefulness in transactions. This book is highly relevant to economists interested in monetary policy and the construction of core inflation indicators and proper monetary indexes, in accordance with aggregation and index number theory. This book is the first to publish Divisia-based money supply indexes and core inflation indicators for the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) countries and for the Gulf Monetary Union. Researchers who use the financial data published by GCC central banks can use our indexes and findings to examine the interactions among the relevant macro-economic variables.




Economic Forecasts


Book Description

Forecasts guide decisions in all areas of economics and finance. Economic policy makers base their decisions on business cycle forecasts, investment decisions of firms are based on demand forecasts, and portfolio managers try to outperform the market based on financial market forecasts. Forecasts extract relevant information from the past and help to reduce the inherent uncertainty of the future. The topic of this special issue of the Journal of Economics and Statistics is the theory and practise of forecasting and forecast evaluation and an overview of the state of the art of forecasting.




Liquidity Management


Book Description

Robust management of liquidity risk within the changing regulatory framework Liquidity Management applies current risk management theory, techniques, and processes to liquidity risk control and management to help organizations prepare in case of future economic crisis and changing regulatory framework. Based on extensive research conducted on banks' datasets, this book addresses the practical challenges and critical issues that frequently go unmentioned, and discusses the recent impact of sovereign crises on banks' liquidity processes and approaches. Market practices and regulatory stances are reviewed and compared to bank treasuries' response to liquidity crunches, refinancing risks are explored in the context of Basel 3, and alternative funding is analyzed in terms of resilience and allocation. Coverage includes the recent crisis, new regulations, and the techniques, processes, and strategies banks use in managing liquidity risk. The 2008 and 2010 crises brought liquidity risk out of the shadows as even profitable and well-capitalized banks were swept away with breathtaking speed. This book reviews modeling and internal process design in the context of the structural change in market conditions on banks' refinancing and control requirements, helping readers rethink and re-design their organization's approach to liquidity risk. Understand the new liquidity regulatory framework and the implications for banks Study the latest liquidity measurement models, with stress testing and scenario analysis Discover the effect of illiquid financing markets and possible lasting impacts Compare market liquidity and warning signals that detect further deterioration With much of the world still reeling from history, it's important that liquidity risk become a major focus going forward. This practical guide provides valuable information, but also real, actionable steps that can be taken today to forecast and mitigate risks with an eye toward greater stability and security. Liquidity Management is a thorough, comprehensive guide to a more robust management of liquidity risk.




Mapping European Empire


Book Description

Empire and maps are mutually reliant phenomena and traceable to the dawn of civilisation. Furthermore, maps retain a supremely authoritative status as unquestioned reflections of reality. In today’s image-saturated world, their influence is more powerful now than at any other time in history. This book argues that in the 21st century we are seeing an imperial renaissance in the European Union (EU), a political organisation which defies categorisation, but whose power and influence grows by the year. It examines the past, present, and future of the EU to demonstrate that empire is not a category of state but rather a collective imagination which reshapes history and appropriates an artificial past to validate the policies of the present and the ambitions of the future. In doing so, this book illuminates the imperial discourse that permeates the mass maps of the modern EU. This text will be of key interest to students and scholars of political science, EU Studies, Human Geography, European political history, cartography and visual methodologies and international relations.




2014 Circulation Euro Coins


Book Description

As a dataset, this book collects all information of circulation euro coins which issued in 2014.




The Chinese Economy


Book Description

​​This book takes readers on a unique journey across some of the most debated implications of the rise of the Chinese economy on the global scene. From the analysis, suggestions emerge on how to improve statistical tools to measure performance and to obtain more precise macroeconomic forecasts. Moreover, it confirms the suspicion that a governance model of firms that does not sufficiently encourage market competition may have significant costs in terms of efficiency for the Chinese production system. The analysis of demographic factors and of household savings gives further support to calls for a serious reform effort, particularly of the pension and health care systems, to utilize households’ savings more efficiently and equitably. Finally the analyses of Chinese and global trade underscore the need for a less superficial consideration of the implications of the Chinese presence in global markets.​




Handbook of Macroeconomics


Book Description

Handbook of Macroeconomics Volumes 2A and 2B surveys major advances in macroeconomic scholarship since the publication of Volume 1 (1999), carefully distinguishing between empirical, theoretical, methodological, and policy issues, including fiscal, monetary, and regulatory policies to deal with crises, unemployment, and economic growth. As this volume shows, macroeconomics has undergone a profound change since the publication of the last volume, due in no small part to the questions thrust into the spotlight by the worldwide financial crisis of 2008. With contributions from the world's leading macroeconomists, its reevaluation of macroeconomic scholarship and assessment of its future constitute an investment worth making. - Serves a double role as a textbook for macroeconomics courses and as a gateway for students to the latest research - Acts as a one-of-a-kind resource as no major collections of macroeconomic essays have been published in the last decade - Builds upon Volume 1 by using its section headings to illustrate just how far macroeconomic thought has evolved




Recent Advances in Estimating Nonlinear Models


Book Description

Nonlinear models have been used extensively in the areas of economics and finance. Recent literature on the topic has shown that a large number of series exhibit nonlinear dynamics as opposed to the alternative--linear dynamics. Incorporating these concepts involves deriving and estimating nonlinear time series models, and these have typically taken the form of Threshold Autoregression (TAR) models, Exponential Smooth Transition (ESTAR) models, and Markov Switching (MS) models, among several others. This edited volume provides a timely overview of nonlinear estimation techniques, offering new methods and insights into nonlinear time series analysis. It features cutting-edge research from leading academics in economics, finance, and business management, and will focus on such topics as Zero-Information-Limit-Conditions, using Markov Switching Models to analyze economics series, and how best to distinguish between competing nonlinear models. Principles and techniques in this book will appeal to econometricians, finance professors teaching quantitative finance, researchers, and graduate students interested in learning how to apply advances in nonlinear time series modeling to solve complex problems in economics and finance.




Unobserved Components and Time Series Econometrics


Book Description

This volume presents original and up-to-date studies in unobserved components (UC) time series models from both theoretical and methodological perspectives. It also presents empirical studies where the UC time series methodology is adopted. Drawing on the intellectual influence of Andrew Harvey, the work covers three main topics: the theory and methodology for unobserved components time series models; applications of unobserved components time series models; and time series econometrics and estimation and testing. These types of time series models have seen wide application in economics, statistics, finance, climate change, engineering, biostatistics, and sports statistics. The volume effectively provides a key review into relevant research directions for UC time series econometrics and will be of interest to econometricians, time series statisticians, and practitioners (government, central banks, business) in time series analysis and forecasting, as well to researchers and graduate students in statistics, econometrics, and engineering.