Leading Indicators of Financial Stress: New Evidence
34 Pages Posted: 11 Jun 2015
Date Written: June 9, 2015
Abstract
This paper examines which variables have predictive power for financial stress in a sample of 25 OECD countries, using a recently constructed Financial Stress Index (FSI). First, we employ Bayesian model averaging to identify leading indicators of our FSI. Next, we use those indicators as explanatory variables in a panel model for all our countries and in models at the individual country level. It turns out that panel models can hardly explain FSI dynamics. Although better results are achieved in models estimated at the country level, our findings suggest that (increases in) financial stress is (are) hard to predict out-of-sample.
Keywords: financial stress index, Bayesian model averaging, early warning indicators
JEL Classification: E5, G10
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation