Search Results
Journal Article
Inflation persistence: how much can we explain?
Until recently most macroeconomic models in which monetary policy has real effects were based on the assumption that agents in the economy do not use all available information when making a decision. Critics of these models argue that this assumption implies that agents are not rational. ; In response to this criticism, a class of New Keynesian models has recently been proposed. These models combine "old" Keynesian elements with an environment in which agents form their expectations rationally. The simplest version of such models includes only one type of nominal rigidity, either sticky ...
Journal Article
Smoothing the shocks of a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model
In some ways, the recession of 2001 and the recovery that followed it were unique: During the recession, the contraction in measured output was driven almost entirely by a retrenchment in business capital spending while consumer spending and residential investment remained positive. And the recovery was marked by moderate, uneven gross domestic product growth and job market weakness that were historically unusual. These events raise questions about the conventional wisdom on post?World War II business cycles. ; To help answer these questions, the authors use a general equilibrium model with ...
Working Paper
Cointegrated TFP processes and international business cycles
A puzzle in international macroeconomics is that observed real exchange rates are highly volatile. Standard international real business cycle (IRBC) models cannot reproduce this fact. We show that total factor productivity processes for the United States and the rest of the world are characterized by a vector error correction model (VECM) and that adding cointegrated technology shocks to the standard IRBC model helps explaining the observed high real exchange rate volatility. Also, we show that the observed increase of the real exchange rate volatility with respect to output in the past ...
Working Paper
Investment-specific technology shocks and international business cycles: an empirical assessment
In this paper, we first introduce investment-specific technology (IST) shocks into an otherwise standard international real business cycle model and show that a thoughtful calibration of them along the lines of Raffo (2009) successfully addresses several of the existing puzzles in the literature. In particular, we obtain a negative correlation of relative consumption and the terms of trade (Backus-Smith puzzle), as well as a more volatile real exchange rate, and cross-country output correlations that are higher than consumption correlations (price and quantity puzzles). Then we use data from ...
Working Paper
Fiscal policy and minimum wage for redistribution: an equivalence result
In this paper, we derive conditions under which a minimum-wage law combined with anonymous taxes and transfers and an agent-specific tax-transfer scheme are equivalent policies.
Working Paper
A, B, C’s, (and D’s) for understanding VARs
The dynamics of a linear (or linearized) dynamic stochastic economic model can be expressed in terms of matrices (A, B, C, D) that define a state-space system. An associated state space system (A, K, C, S) determines a vector autoregression (VAR) for observables available to an econometrician. We review circumstances in which the impulse response of the VAR resembles the impulse response associated with the economic model. We give four examples that illustrate a simple condition for checking whether the mapping from VAR shocks to economic shocks is invertible. The condition applies when there ...
Working Paper
Estimating nonlinear dynamic equilibrium economies: a likelihood approach
This paper presents a framework to undertake likelihood-based inference in nonlinear dynamic equilibrium economies. The authors develop a sequential Monte Carlo algorithm that delivers an estimate of the likelihood function of the model using simulation methods. This likelihood can be used for parameter estimation and for model comparison. The algorithm can deal both with nonlinearities of the economy and with the presence of non-normal shocks. The authors show consistency of the estimate and its good performance in finite simulations. This new algorithm is important because the existing ...
Working Paper
Estimating dynamic equilibrium economies: linear versus nonlinear likelihood
This paper compares two methods for undertaking likelihood-based inference in dynamic equilibrium economies: a sequential Monte Carlo filter proposed by Fernndez-Villaverde and Rubio-Ramrez (2004) and the Kalman filter. The sequential Monte Carlo filter exploits the nonlinear structure of the economy and evaluates the likelihood function of the model by simulation methods. The Kalman filter estimates a linearization of the economy around the steady state. The authors report two main results. First, both for simulated and for real data, the sequential Monte Carlo filter delivers a ...
Working Paper
Markov-switching structural vector autoregressions: theory and application
This paper develops a new and easily implementable necessary and sufficient condition for the exact identification of a Markov-switching structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. The theorem applies to models with both linear and some nonlinear restrictions on the structural parameters. We also derive efficient MCMC algorithms to implement sign and long-run restrictions in Markov-switching SVARs. Using our methods, four well-known identification schemes are used to study whether monetary policy has changed in the euro area since the introduction of the European Monetary Union. We find ...
Working Paper
The Systematic Component of Monetary Policy in SVARs: An Agnostic Identification Procedure
This paper studies the effects of monetary policy shocks using structural VARs. We achieve identification by imposing sign and zero restrictions on the systematic component of monetary policy. Importantly, our identification scheme does not restrict the contemporaneous response of output to a monetary policy shock. Using data for the period 1965?2007, we consistently find that an increase in the federal funds rate induces a contraction in output. We also find that monetary policy shocks are contractionary during the Great Moderation. Finally, we show that the identification strategy in Uhlig ...