Search Results
Working Paper
Specification and Estimation of Bayesian Dynamic Factor Models: A Monte Carlo Analysis with an Application to Global House Price Comovement
We compare methods to measure comovement in business cycle data using multi-level dynamic factor models. To do so, we employ a Monte Carlo procedure to evaluate model performance for different specifications of factor models across three different estimation procedures. We consider three general factor model specifications used in applied work. The first is a single- factor model, the second a two-level factor model, and the third a three-level factor model. Our estimation procedures are the Bayesian approach of Otrok and Whiteman (1998), the Bayesian state space approach of Kim and Nelson ...
Working Paper
The Nonlinear Effects of Uncertainty Shocks
We consider the effects of uncertainty shocks in a nonlinear VAR that allows uncertainty to have amplification effects. When uncertainty is relatively low, fluctuations in uncertainty have small, linear effects. In periods of high uncertainty, the effect of a further increase in uncertainty is magnified. We find that uncertainty shocks in this environment have a more pronounced effect on real economic variables. We also conduct counterfactual experiments to determine the channels through which uncertainty acts. Uncertainty propagates through both the household consumption channel and through ...
Journal Article
A Measure of Price Pressures
The Federal Reserve devotes significant resources to forecasting key economic variables such as real gross domestic product growth, employment, and inflation. The outlook for these variables also matters a great deal to businesses and financial market participants. The authors present a factor-augmented Bayesian vector autoregressive forecasting model that significantly outperforms both a benchmark random walk model and a pure time-series model. They then use these factors in an ordered probit model to develop the probability distribution over a 12-month horizon. One distribution assesses the ...
Working Paper
FRED-SD: A Real-Time Database for State-Level Data with Forecasting Applications
We construct a real-time dataset (FRED-SD) with vintage data for the U.S. states that can be used to forecast both state-level and national-level variables. Our dataset includes approximately 28 variables per state, including labor market, production, and housing variables. We conduct two sets of real-time forecasting exercises. The first forecasts state-level labor-market variables using five different models and different levels of industrially-disaggregated data. The second forecasts a national-level variable exploiting the cross-section of state data. The state-forecasting experiments ...
Journal Article
A Bad Moon Rising? Uncertainty Shocks and Economic Outcomes
Economic uncertainty is highest in recent decades.
Working Paper
International Stock Comovements with Endogenous Clusters
We examine international stock return comovements of country-industry portfolios. Our model allows comovements to be driven by a global and a cluster component, with the cluster membership endogenously determined. Results indicate that country-industry portfolios tend to cluster mainly within geographical areas that can include one or more countries. The cluster compositions substantially changed over time, with the emergence of clusters among European countries from the early 2000s. The cluster component was the main driver of country-industry portfolio returns for most of the sample, except ...
Working Paper
Tax Progressivity, Economic Booms, and Trickle-Up Economics
We propose a method to decompose changes in the tax structure into orthogonal components measuring the level and progressivity of taxes. The level shock is similar to tax shocks found in the empirical literature--increasing the tax level is contractionary. On the other hand, an increase in tax progressivity is expansionary. When tax progressivity increases, the bottom of the income distribution experiences an increase in disposable income. Agents at the low end of the income distribution who have high marginal propensity to consume offset the decrease in consumption by the savers at the high ...
Working Paper
International Stock Comovements with Endogenous Clusters
We use an endogenous cluster factor model to examine international stock return comovements of country-industry portfolios. Our model allows country-industry portfolio comovements to be driven by a global and a cluster component, with the cluster membership endogenously determined. Results indicate that country-industry portfolios tend to cluster mainly within geographical areas that can include one or more countries. The cluster component was the main driver of country-industry portfolio returns for most of the sample, except from mid-2000 to mid-2010s when the global component had a more ...
Working Paper
Age and Gender Differentials in Unemployment and Hysteresis
We use a time-varying panel unobserved components model to estimate unemployment gaps disaggregated by age and gender. Recessions before COVID affected men's labor market outcomes more than women's; however, the reverse was true for the COVID recession, with effects amplified for younger workers. The aggregate Phillips curve flattens over time and hysteresis is countercyclical for all groups. We find heterogeneity in both the Phillips curve and hysteresis coefficients, with wages responding more to workers with an outside option (high school- and retirement-age) and larger effects of ...
Working Paper
Tax Progressivity, Economic Booms, and Trickle-Up Economics
We propose a method to decompose changes in the tax structure into a component measuring the level of taxes and a component orthogonal to the level that measures progressivity. While our focus is on the progessivity results, we find that the level shock is similar to standard tax shocks found in the empirical literature in that a rise in the level is contractionary. An increase in tax progressivity sets off an economic boom. Those at the bottom of the income distribution (who are constrained hand-to-mouth consumers) set off a consumption boom that expands the overall economy. Those at the top ...