The main goal of the present paper is to analyze the effects of currency collapses (a large devaluation of country’s nominal exchange rate) on real gross domestic products of six Asian countries (Iran, Indonesia, Malaysia, Pakistan, South Korea, and Turkey). A yearly data is collected from the WDI of the World Bank over the period 1980-2011. The econometric model includes the real GDP growt...

This paper presents and describes a large, monthly frequency, macroeconomic database with the goal of establishing a convenient starting point for empirical analysis that requires ”Big Data.” The dataset mimics the coverage of those already used in the literature but has three appealing features. First, it is designed to be updated in real-time using the FRED database. Second, it will be public...

Using a standard factor decomposition of a panel of forecasts, we have shown that the forecast uncertainty from the standpoint of a policy maker can be expressed as the disagreement among forecasters plus the perceived variability of common aggregate shocks. Thus, the uncertainty of the average forecast is not the variance of the average forecast but rather the average of the variances of the i...

Are Youths on Income Support Less Happy? Evidence from Australia The central research question addressed in this paper is how receipt of income support payments affects the well-being of youths. Using 1997-2004 panel data from a nationally representative survey of Australian youths, we attempt to estimate the size of the welfare stigma faced by Australian youths, where stigma is defined as the ...

This paper presents the nonlinear IV methodology as an effective inferential basis for nonstationary panels. The nonlinear IV method resolves the inferential difficulties in testing for unit roots arising from the intrinsic heterogeneities and cross-dependencies of panel models. Individual units are allowed to be dependent through correlations among innovations, interrelatedness of short-run dy...

This paper investigates the past effectiveness of the Maastricht Treaty (MT) and Stability and Growth Pact (SGP) in disciplining fiscal policy in the Euro zone. We estimate fiscal reaction functions for a panel of 11 members of the Euro zone including the more recent period of the reformed SGP, and compare them with fiscal responses from other “industrialized” OECD countries. Our main finding i...

Isolated effects of labor and product market institutions as well as the interaction between both aforementioned categories on unemployment have been extensively discussed in the empirical literature. However, interaction effects between individual labor market institutions have been widely neglected, mainly due to the infeasibility to correctly specify the model. In this paper, a model averagi...

This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF. The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate. This paper proposes a new way of computing a coincident indic...

Dependence Measures in Bivariate Gamma Frailty Models Bivariate duration data frequently arise in economics, biostatistics and other areas. In “bivariate frailty models”, dependence between the frailties (i.e., unobserved determinants) induces dependence between the durations. Using notions of quadrant dependence, we study restrictions that this imposes on the implied dependence of the duration...

The objective of this paper is to estimate the impacts of medium and long term participation in microfinance programs. It utilises a new, large and unique panel dataset collected from treatment and control households from 1997 to 2005. The data enables us to identify continuing participants in the program as well as newcomers and leavers. We employ different estimation strategies including trip...