Rossi, Barbara, Sekhposyan, Tatevik, Soupre, Mattheiu, (2016), “Understanding the Sources of Macroeconomic Uncertainty”, Center for Economic Policy Research, July We propose a decomposition to distinguish between Knightian uncertainty (ambiguity) and risk, where the first measures the uncertainty about the probability distribution generating the data, while the second measures uncertainty about the odds of the outcomes when the probability distribution is known. We use the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) density forecasts …Read More

Spence, Michael, (2016), “Growth in a Time of Disruption”, Project Syndicate, 27 July Developing countries are facing major obstacles – many of which they have little to no control over – to achieving sustained high growth. Beyond the headwinds generated by slow advanced-economy growth and abnormal post-crisis monetary and financial conditions, there are the disruptive impacts of digital technology, which are set to erode developing economies’ comparative advantage in labor-intensive manufacturing …Read More

Marzinotto, Benedicta, (2016), “How income inequality affects euro area current account imbalances”, LSE Europpblog, 27 July Since the late 2000s financial crisis, a great deal of attention has been focused on the issue of how inequality affects the lives of citizens. But can inequality also explain some of the macroeconomic trends present in European countries? Benedicta Marzinotto writes on the link between inequality and current account imbalances in the Eurozone. Using …Read More

Gelos, Gaston, Valckx, Nico, (2016), “The insurance sector and systemic risk”, Voxeu, 27 July In recent years, the life insurance sector has become more systemically important across advanced economies. This increase is largely due to growing common exposures and to insurers’ rising interest rate sensitivity. This column analyses the evolution of the insurance sector’s contribution to systemic risk. Overall, life insurers do not seem to have markedly changed their asset portfolios …Read More