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Discussion Paper
Look Out for Outlook-at-Risk
The timely characterization of risks to the economic outlook plays an important role in both economic policy and private sector decisions. In a February 2023 Liberty Street Economics post, we introduced the concept of “Outlook-at-Risk”—that is, the downside risk to real activity and two-sided risks to inflation. Today we are launching Outlook-at-Risk as a regularly updated data product, with new readings for the conditional distributions of real GDP growth, the unemployment rate, and inflation to be published each month. In this post, we use the data on conditional distributions to ...
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A Simple Diagnostic for Time-Series and Panel-Data Regressions
We introduce a new regression diagnostic, tailored to time-series and panel-data regressions, which characterizes the sensitivity of the OLS estimate to distinct time-series variation at different frequencies. The diagnostic is built on the novel result that the eigenvectors of a random walk asymptotically orthogonalize a wide variety of time-series processes. Our diagnostic is based on leave-one-out OLS estimation on transformed variables using these eigenvectors. We illustrate how our diagnostic allows applied researchers to scrutinize regression results and probe for underlying fragility ...
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A Jackknife Variance Estimator for Panel Regressions
We introduce a new jackknife variance estimator for panel-data regressions. Our variance estimator can be motivated as the conventional leave-one-out jackknife variance estimator on a transformed space of the regressors and residuals using orthonormal trigonometric basis functions. We prove the asymptotic validity of our variance estimator and demonstrate desirable finite-sample properties in a series of simulation experiments. We also illustrate how our method can be used for jackknife bias-correction in a variety of time-series settings.
Discussion Paper
What Is “Outlook-at-Risk?”
The Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) has increased the target range for the federal funds rate by 4.50 percentage points since March 16, 2022. In tightening the stance of monetary policy, the FOMC balances the risk of inflation remaining persistently high if the economy continues to run “hot” against the risk of unemployment rising as the economy cools. In this post, we review a quantitative approach to measuring the evolution of risks to real GDP growth, the unemployment rate, and inflation that is inspired by our previous work on “Vulnerable Growth.” We find that, in February, ...
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The Nonlinear Case Against Leaning Against the Wind
We re-examine the relationship between monetary policy and financial stability in a setting that allows for nonlinear, time-varying relationships between monetary policy, financial stability, and macroeconomic outcomes. Using novel machine-learning techniques, we estimate a flexible “nonlinear VAR” for the stance of monetary policy, real activity, inflation, and financial conditions, and evaluate counterfactual evolutions of downside risk to real activity under alternative monetary policy paths. We find that a tighter path of monetary policy in 2003-05 would have increased the risk of ...