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Working Paper
Are deep recessions followed by strong recoveries?
Journal Article
Understanding the price puzzle
Recent developments in measuring the stance of monetary policy have highlighted an interesting puzzle--namely, that an unexpected tightening in monetary policy leads to an increase rather than a decrease in the price level. In this article, Nathan Balke and Kenneth Emery present evidence on the price puzzle and discuss possible explanations for it. ; Balke and Emery find that the most plausible explanation is that, during the 1960s and '70s, monetary policy was not implemented in a way that fully offset inflationary supply shocks. During this period, monetary policy would tighten in response ...
Working Paper
Asymmetric information and the role of FED watching
Working Paper
Fuel subsidies, the oil market and the world economy
This paper studies the e ffects of oil producing countries' fuel subsidies on the oil market and the world economy. We identify 24 oil producing countries with fuel subsidies where retail fuel prices are about 34 percent of the world price. We construct a two-country model where one country represents the oil-exporting subsidizers and the second the oil-importing bloc, and calibrate the model to match recent data. We find that the removal of subsidies would reduce the world price of oil by six percent. The removal of subsidies is unambiguously welfare enhancing for the oil-importing ...
Journal Article
Modeling trends in macroeconomic time series
How predictable are real GNP, prices, and other macroeconomic data over long time horizons? The answer depends on the nature of their trends. In this article, Nathan S. Balke describes alternative models of trend for economic data, discusses the implications of these models for forecasting and business-cycle analysis, and reviews some of the existing evidence for and against various models of trend. ; In addition, Balke conducts a case study of real GNP and the price level. He finds that a simple linear time trend may adequately reflect the long- run behavior of real GNP. The price level, on ...
Journal Article
Explaining stock price movements: is there a case for fundamentals?
Some observers have argued that the run-up in the Standard & Poor's 500 stock price index during the 1990s was due to irrational exuberance rather than market fundamentals. This article presents evidence that the case for market fundamentals is stronger than it appears on the surface. Nathan Balke and Mark Wohar show that movements in the price-dividend and price-earnings rations have exhibited substantial persistence, particularly since World War II. Hence, using the long-run historical average value of the price/earnings or price/dividend ratio as the "normal" valuation ratio is ...
Working Paper
Threshold cointegration