A comparison of currency crisis dating methods: East Asia 1970-2002

Generally, a currency crisis is defined to occur if an index of currency pressure exceeds a threshold. This paper compares several currency crisis dating methods adopting different definitions of currency pressure indexes and ad-hoc and extreme value based thresholds. We illustrate the methods with data of six East Asian countries for the January 1970?December 2002 period, and evaluate the methods on the basis of the IMF chronology of the Asia crisis in 1997-1998.

Lessons from the latest data on U.S. productivity

Productivity growth is carefully scrutinized by macroeconomists because it plays key roles in understanding private savings behaviour, the sources of macroeconomic shocks, the evolution of international competitiveness and the solvency of public pension systems, among other things. However, estimates of recent and expected productivity growth rates suffer from two potential problems: (i) recent estimates of growth trends are imprecise, and (ii) recently published data often undergo important revisions. This paper documents the statistical (un)reliability of several measures of aggregate productivity growth in the U.S. by examining the extent to which they are revised over time. The authors also examine the extent to which such revisions contribute to errors in forecasts of U.S. productivity growth. The authors find that data revisions typically cause appreciable changes in published estimates of productivity growth rates across a range of different productivity measures. Substantial revisions often occur years after the initial data release, which they argue contributes significantly to the overall uncertainty policymakers face. This emphasizes the need for means of reducing the uncertainty facing policymakers and policies robust to uncertainty about current economic conditions.>Productivity - United States ; Statistics ; Real-time data

Forecasting with real-time macroeconomic data: the ragged-edge problem and revisions

Real-time macroeconomic data are typically incomplete for today and the immediate past (?ragged edge?) and subject to revision. To enable more timely forecasts the recent missing data have to be dealt with. In the context of the U.S. leading index we assess four alternatives,paying explicit attention to publication lags and data revisions.

On information in static and dynamic factor models

This paper employs concepts from information theory in factor models. We show that in the exact factor model the whole distribution of eigenvalues of the covariance matrix contributes to the information and not only the largest ones. In addition, we derive the condition that the first q say eigenvalues diverge whereas the rest remain bounded in the static model rather than having to assume it. Finally, we calculate information in static and dynamic factor models, which can be used to find the dimensions of the factor space. We illustrate the concepts with simulation experiments.

Consumer demand in the Industrial Revolution: The Netherlands, 1815-1913

The industrial revolution is mostly seen as a supply side phenomenon. Ever since Gilboy stated that factors of demand may have been equally important, scholars have stressed the importance of investments and technological change. This paper re-considers Gilboy?s ideas, using the dataset of the Dutch historical national accounts for the nineteenth century. Using a counterfactual VAR analysis, it is investigated to what extent changes in (determinants of) consumer demand may have affected patterns of industrial development.