Tag Archives: macroeconomics

FDI and Capital Flows: New Perspectives from New Data

Capital flows and their volatility present challenges for economic policy makers.  They can exacerbate economic cycles.  Their outflows can lead to costly “sudden stops”.  One particular form of capital flows, namely foreign direct investment (FDI) has been regarded differently compared to other forms of capital flows like debt and portfolio flows.  First, unlike foreign portfolio […]

Job-to-job transitions: A different lens for understanding wage dynamics

Since the global financial crisis, a number of central banks have been undershooting their inflation targets. Over this period labour markets have tightened steadily in many countries with unemployment rates reaching record lows. At the same time, wage growth has remained weak by historical standards. Some researchers argued that the Phillips curve, the main paradigm […]

Credit where credit is due: calculating credit-to-GDP gaps

In the wake of the Great Financial Crisis, the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision (BCBS) argued for counter-cyclical capital buffers and published operational guidelines (BCBS 2010) for regulators.  The cornerstone of the BCBS proposal was the use of cyclical movements in the credit-to-GDP ratio gap to trigger increases in the capital required to be held […]