The importance of disturbances in financial markets for real economic activity and the positive association between price level and output movements typically are explained by appeal to a combination of nominal aggregate demand shocks (particularly money-supply shocks) and rigid prices. We argue that this view is inconsistent with evidence for short-run responsiveness of prices and gold flows t...

There is a huge literature suggesting that stock price movements reflect the market’s expectation of future developments in the economy. As a test of standard valuation models, Eugene F. Fama (1990) shows that monthly, quarterly, and annual stock returns are highly correlated with future production growth rates for the 1953–1987 period. This result is confirmed on a extended sample (1889–1988) ...

I investigate cointegrating relationships such that, even though the long-run attractors are assumed to be linear, the dynamics of the equilibrium errors depends on the business cycle. I postulate a Markov-switching common stochastic trends model to study both the short-run responses to permanent shocks and the e/ects of recessions in the long-run growth. I apply these 0ndings to explore the sh...

We develop a simple Keynesian type business cycle model in which heterogeneous agents are either optimistic or pessimistic. If the majority of the agents are optimistic, then consumption expenditures are high and the economy booms, otherwise consumption expenditures are low and the economy is in a recession. Within our model, the sentiment of the agents is affected by their social interactions....

Uncertainty associated with the monetary policy transmission mechanism is a key driving force of business cycles. To investigate this link, we propose a new term structure model that allows the volatility of the yield curve to interact with macroeconomic indicators. The data favors a model with two volatility factors that capture shortterm and long-term interest rate uncertainty. Increases in e...

This paper studies the way in which labor market fluctuations affect the transition to early retirement among older employees in Sweden via the practice of negotiated pensions. The results indicate that downturns (upturns) in aggregated industry employment increases (decreases) the probability of early retirement. This result is driven by the public sector; in general the evidence is much weake...

We investigate the relationship between uncertainty about monetary policy and its transmission mechanism, and economic fluctuations. We propose a new term structure model where the second moments of macroeconomic variables and yields can have a first-order effect on their dynamics. The data favors a model with two unspanned volatility factors that capture uncertainty about monetary policy and t...

The relationship between economic fluctuations and mortality is assessed with data from Spain during the years 1980–1997, when national unemployment oscillated between 7% and 24%. Mortality rates of the Spanish provinces are modeled in fixed-effect panel regressions as functions of the demographic structure and the economic conditions. Unemployment effects on general mortality, sex-specific mor...