Search Results
Working Paper
Contagious Switching
We analyze the propagation of recessions across countries. We construct a model that allows for multiple qualitative state variables in a vector autoregression (VAR) setting. The VAR structure allows us to include country-level variables to determine whether policy also propagates across countries. We consider two different versions of the model. One version assumes the discrete state of the economy (expansion or recession) is observed. The other assumes that the state of the economy is unobserved and must be inferred from movements in economic growth. We apply the model to Canada, Mexico, ...
Working Paper
Permanent and transitory components of business cycles: their relative importance and dynamic relationship
This paper investigates the relationship between permanent and transitory components of U.S. recessions in an empirical model allowing for business cycle asymmetry. Using a common stochastic trend representation for real GNP and consumption, we divide real GNP into permanent and transitory components, the dynamics of which are different in booms vs. recessions. We find evidence of substantial asymmetries in postwar recessions, and that both the permanent and transitory component have contributed to these recessions. We also allow for the timing of switches from boom to recession for the ...
Working Paper
The 2001 recession and the states of the Eighth Federal Reserve District
This paper examines and compares the recent business cycle experiences of the seven states that lie partly or wholly within the Eighth Federal Reserve District (Arkansas, Illinois, Indiana, Kentucky, Mississippi, Missouri, and Tennessee). For the period surrounding the 1990-91 NBER recession, six of the seven states had recessions that were much shorter than for the country as a whole. For the period surrounding the 2001 NBER recession, four states-Arkansas, Indiana, Kentucky, and Tennessee-entered and exited recession earlier than the country as a whole. Recessions in the other three states ...
Working Paper
Beyond the numbers: an analysis of optimistic and pessimistic language in earnings press releases
In this paper, we examine whether managers use optimistic and pessimistic language in earnings press releases to provide information about expected future firm performance to the market, and whether the market responds to optimistic and pessimistic language usage in earnings press releases after controlling for the earnings surprise and other factors likely to influence the market*s response to the earnings announcement. We use textual-analysis software to measure levels of optimistic and pessimistic language for a sample of approximately 24,000 earnings press releases issued between 1998 and ...
Working Paper
Inflation: do expectations trump the gap?
We measure the relative contribution of the deviation of real activity from its equilibrium (the gap), ?supply shock? variables, and long-horizon inflation forecasts for explaining the U.S. inflation rate in the post-war period. For alternative specifications for the inflation driving process and measures of inflation and the gap we reach a similar conclusion: the contribution of changes in long-horizon inflation forecasts dominates that for the gap and supply shock variables. Put another way, variation in long-horizon inflation forecasts explains the bulk of the movement in realized ...
Working Paper
The economic performance of cities: a Markov-switching approach
This paper examines the determinants of employment growth in metro areas. To obtain growth rates, we use a Markov-switching model that separates a city?s growth path into two distinct phases (high and low), each with its own growth rate. The simple average growth rate over some period is, therefore, the weighted average of the high-phase and low-phase growth rates, with the weight being the frequency of the two phases. We estimate the effects of a variety of factors separately for the high-phase and low-phase growth rates, along with the frequency of the low phase. We find that growth in the ...
Working Paper
A state-level analysis of the Great Moderation
A number of studies have documented a reduction in aggregate macroeconomic volatility beginning in the early 1980s. Using an empirical model of business cycles, we extend this line of research to state-level employment data and find significant heterogeneity in the timing and magnitude of the state-level volatility reductions. In fact, some states experience no statistically-important reductions in volatility. We then exploit this cross sectional heterogeneity to evaluate hypotheses about the origin of the aggregate volatility reduction. We show that states with relatively high concentrations ...
Working Paper
Identifying asymmetry in the language of the Beige Book: a mixed data sampling approach
Studies of the predictive ability of the Federal Reserve's Beige Book, an anecdotal measure of regional economic conditions, for aggregate output and employment have proven inconclusive. This might be attributed, in part, to the irregular release schedule of the Beige Book. In this paper, we use a model that allows for data sampling at mixed frequencies to analyze the predictive power of the Beige Book for both aggregate and regional data. We find that the Beige Book's national summary predicts GDP and aggregate employment, but that the information content in the district reports for regional ...
Working Paper
Discordant city employment cycles
The national economy is often described as having a business cycle over which aggregate output enters and exits distinct expansion and recession phases. Analogously, national employment cycles in and out of its own expansion and contraction phases, which are closely related to the business cycle. This paper estimates city-level employment cycles for 58 large U.S. cities and documents the substantial cross-city variation in the timing, lengths, and frequencies of their employment contractions. It also shows how the spread of city-level contractions associated with U.S. recessions has tended to ...
Working Paper
The importance of nonlinearity in reproducing business cycle features
This paper considers the ability of simulated data from linear and nonlinear time-series models to reproduce features in U.S. real GDP data related to business cycle phases. We focus our analysis on a number of linear ARIMA models and nonlinear Markov-switching models. To determine the timing of business cycle phases for the simulated data, we present a model-free algorithm that is more successful than previous methods at matching NBER dates and associated features in the postwar data. We find that both linear and Markov-switching models are able to reproduce business cycle features such as ...