Publikationen Prognose und Konjunkturpolitik

The Role of Asset Markets for Private Consumption: Evidence from Paneleconometric Models

We explore the long and short run relationship between private consumption, disposable income and housing and financial wealth approximated by price indices for a panel of industrialized countries. Consumption, income and wealth are cointegrated in their common, but not in their idiosyncratic components. This stresses the relevance of inter-national spillovers to explain aggregate consumption behaviour. ...

Rating Assignments: Lessons from International Banks

This paper estimates ordered logit and probit regression models for bank ratings which also include a country index to capture country-specific variation. The empirical findings provide support to the hypothesis that the individual international bank ratings assigned by Fitch Ratings are underpinned by fundamental quantitative financial analyses. Also, there is strong evidence of a country effect. ...

Drivers of Exchange Rate Dynamics in Selected CIS Countries: Evidence from a FAVAR Analysis

We investigate the likely sources of exchange rate dynamics in selected CIS countries (Russia, Kazakhstan, Ukraine, Kyrgyzstan, Azerbaijan, and Moldova) over the past decade (1999-2008). The analysis is based on country VAR models augmented by a regional common factor structure (FAVAR model). The models include nominal exchange rates, the common factor of exchange rates in the CIS countries, and global ...

European Financial Market Integration: A Closer Look at Government Bonds in Eurozone Countries

The European Union made a number of steps not least of them the introduction of a common currency to foster the integration of the European financial markets. A number of papers have tried to gauge the degree of integration for various financial markets looking at the convergence of interest rates. A common finding is that government bond markets are quite well integrated. In this paper stochastic ...

The Russian Regional Convergence Process: Where Does It Go?

This paper investigates the income convergence among Russian regions in the period 1998-2006. It makes two major contributions to rather extensive literature on the regional convergence in Russia. First, it identifies spatial regimes using the exploratory spatial data analysis. Second, it examines the impact of spatial effects on the convergence process. Our results show that the overall speed of regional ...

Liquidity and Asset Prices: How Strong Are the Linkages?

The appropriate design of monetary policy in integrated financial markets is one of the most challenging areas for central banks. One hot topic is whether the rise in liquidity in recent years has contributed to the formation of price bubbles in asset markets. If strong linkages exist, the inclusion of asset prices in the monetary policy rule can eventually limit speculative runs and negative effects ...

Common and Spatial Drivers in Regional Business Cycles

We examine real business cycle convergence for 41 euro area regions and 48 US states. Results obtained by a panel model with spatial correlation indicate that the relevance of common business cycle factors is rather stable over the past two decades in the euro area and the US. Ongoing business cycle convergence often detected in a country data is not confirmed at the regional level. The degree of synchronization ...

Do Forecasters Inform or Reassure? Evaluation of the German Real-Time Data

The paper evaluates the quality of the German national accounting data (GDP and its use-side components) as measured by the magnitude and dispersion of the forecast/ revision errors. It is demonstrated that government consumption series are the least reliable, whereas real GDP and real private consumption data are the most reliable. In addition, early forecasts of GDP, private consumption, and investment ...

To Dollarize or De-dollarize: Consequences for Monetary Policy

Caught in the US Subprime Meltdown 2007/2008: Germany Loses Its Wallet but Escapes Major Harm

The ongoing financial crisis so far cost the German financial sector 38 billion Euros due to losses on its mortgage-related subprime bank exposures. This paper looks for the impact of these losses on the real sector of the economy. First, the financial sector is looked at as part of the overall macro economy in order to identify the direct impact of the write-offs and devaluations of financial assets ...