Search Results
Working Paper
Real-time measurement of business conditions
We construct a framework for measuring economic activity at high frequency, potentially in real time. We use a variety of stock and flow data observed at mixed frequencies (including very high frequencies), and we use a dynamic factor model that permits exact filtering. We illustrate the framework in a prototype empirical example and a simulation study calibrated to the example.
Working Paper
Piecewise-Linear Approximations and Filtering for DSGE Models with Occasionally Binding Constraints
We develop an algorithm to construct approximate decision rules that are piecewise-linear and continuous for DSGE models with an occasionally binding constraint. The functional form of the decision rules allows us to derive a conditionally optimal particle filter (COPF) for the evaluation of the likelihood function that exploits the structure of the solution. We document the accuracy of the likelihood approximation and embed it into a particle Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm to conduct Bayesian estimation. Compared with a standard bootstrap particle filter, the COPF significantly ...
Working Paper
Optimal fiscal and monetary policy when money is essential
We study optimal fiscal and monetary policy in an environment where explicit frictions give rise to valued money, making money essential in the sense that it expands the set of feasible trades. Our main results are in stark contrast to the prescriptions of earlier flexible-price Ramsey models. Two especially important findings emerge from our work: the Friedman Rule is typically not optimal and inflation is stable over time. Inflation is not a substitute instrument for a missing tax, as is sometimes the case in standard Ramsey models. Rather, the inflation tax is exactly the right tax to use ...
Working Paper
Macroeconomic Dynamics Near the ZLB : A Tale of Two Countries
We compute a sunspot equilibrium in an estimated small-scale New Keynesian model with a zero lower bound (ZLB) constraint on nominal interest rates and a full set of stochastic fundamental shocks. In this equilibrium a sunspot shock can move the economy from a regime in which inflation is close to the central bank's target to a regime in which the central bank misses its target, inflation rates are negative, and interest rates are close to zero with high probability. A nonlinear filter is used to examine whether the U.S. in the aftermath of the Great Recession and Japan in the late 1990s ...
Working Paper
Money and capital: a quantitative analysis
We study the effects of money (anticipated inflation) on capital formation. Previous papers on this topic adopt reduced-form approaches, putting money in the utility function or imposing cash in advance, but use otherwise frictionless models. We follow a literature that is more explicit about the frictions making money essential. This introduces several new elements, including a two-sector structure with centralized and decentralized markets, stochastic trading opportunities, and bargaining. We show how these elements matter qualitatively and quantitatively. Our numerical results differ from ...
Working Paper
Assessing DSGE model nonlinearities
We develop a new class of nonlinear time-series models to identify nonlinearities in the data and to evaluate nonlinear DSGE models. U.S. output growth and the federal funds rate display nonlinear conditional mean dynamics, while inflation and nominal wage growth feature conditional heteroskedasticity. We estimate a DSGE model with asymmetric wage/price adjustment costs and use predictive checks to assess its ability to account for nonlinearities. While it is able to match the nonlinear inflation and wage dynamics, thanks to the estimated downward wage/price rigidities, these do not spill ...
Working Paper
How Big is the Wealth Effect? Decomposing the Response of Consumption to House Prices
We investigate the effect of declining house prices on household consumption behavior during 2006-2009. We use an individual-level dataset that has detailed information on borrower characteristics, mortgages and credit risk. Proxying consumption by individual-level auto loan originations, we decompose the effect of declining house prices on consumption into three main channels: wealth effect, household financial constraints, and bank health. We find a negligible wealth effect. Tightening householdlevel financial constraints can explain 40-45 percent of the response of consumption to declining ...
Working Paper
The macroeconomy and the yield curve: a nonstructural analysis
We estimate a model with latent factors that summarize the yield curve (namely, level, slope, and curvature) as well as observable macroeconomic variables (real activity, inflation, and the stance of monetary policy). Our goal is to provide a characterization of the dynamic interactions between the macroeconomy and the yield curve. We find strong evidence of the effects of macro variables on future movements in the yield curve and much weaker evidence for a reverse influence. We also relate our results to a traditional macroeconomic approach based on the expectations hypothesis.
Working Paper
Comparing solution methods for dynamic equilibrium economies
This paper compares solution methods for dynamic equilibrium economies. The authors compute and simulate the stochastic neoclassical growth model with leisure choice using Undetermined Coefficients in levels and in logs, Finite Elements, Chebyshev Polynomials, Second and Fifth Order Perturbations and Value Function Iteration for several calibrations. The authors document the performance of the methods in terms of computing time, implementation complexity and accuracy and they present some conclusions about their preferred approaches based on the reported evidence.
Conference Paper
Search, money, and capital: a neoclassical dichotomy
Recent work has reduced the gap between search-based monetary theory and mainstream macroeconomics by incorporating into the search model some centralized markets as well as some decentralized markets where money is essential. This paper takes a further step toward this integration by introducing labor, capital, and neoclassical firms. The resulting framework nests a search-theoretic monetary model and a standard neoclassical growth model as special cases.