Search all library resources

An Analysis of the Embedded Frequency Content of Macroeconomic Indicators and their Counterparts using the Hilbert-Huang Transform [electronic resource]

Many indicators of business and growth cycles have been constructed by both private and public agencies and are now in use as monitoring devices of economic conditions and for forecasting purposes. As these indicators are largely composite constructs using other economic data, their frequency composition is likely different to that of the variables that they are used as for indicators.

Online OECD iLibrary

How fused is the euro area core? [electronic resource]: An evaluation of growth cycle co-movement and synchronization using wavelet analysis

This paper uses several recent advances in time-varying spectral methods to analyse the growth cycles of the core of the euro area in terms of frequency content and phasing of cycles. There are two main findings. First that coherence and phasing between the three core members of the euro area (France, Germany and Italy) continue to differ, and that for France they increased in the 1990s but not noticeably since the launch of the euro. Second that similarities vary considerably according to the length of cycle. They are high for low frequencies but lower at traditional business cycle frequencies. Simply looking at business cycles loses much of the detail of the extent of co-movement in different frequency cycles within the euro area.

Online OECD iLibrary

Kut 1916 : courage and failure in Iraq

The Allied campaign in Mesopotamia began in 1914 as a relatively simple operation to secure the oilfields in the Shatt-al-Arah delta and Basra area. Initially it was a great success, but as the army pressed towards Baghdad its poor logistic support, training, equipment and command left it isolated and besieged by the Turks. By 1916 the force had not been relieved, and on 29 April 1916, the British Army suffered one of the worst defeats in its military history. Major-General Sir Charles Townshend surrendered his force to the Turks in the Mesopotamian (now Iraq) town of Kut-al-Amara. Over 13,000 troops, British and Indian, went into captivity; many would not survive their incarceration, and others would undertake elaborate schemes to escape. In "Kut 1916", Colonel Crowley recounts this dramatic tale and its terrible aftermath. 'There is plenty of horseflesh, which the Indians have been authorized by their religious leaders to eat, and I have to recall with sorrow, that by not having taken the advantage of this wise dispensation they have weakened my power of resistance by one month' - Major-General Townshend.