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Working Paper
Learning about Regime Change
Total factor productivity (TFP) and investment specific technology (IST) growth both exhibit regime-switching behavior, but the regime at any given time is difficult to infer. We build a rational expectations real business cycle model where the underlying TFP and IST regimes are unobserved. We then develop a general perturbation solution algorithm for a wide class of models with unobserved regime-switching. Using our method, we show that learning about regime-switching alters the responses to regime shifts and intra-regime shocks, increases asymmetries in the responses, generates forecast ...
Journal Article
The Effects of Permanent and Transitory Shocks under Imperfect Information
We study an economic environment affected by shocks that may be either permanent or transitory in nature. Contrary to the standard perfect information setup, we assume that households cannot distinguish between the two types of shocks. We describe how to solve the model under this imperfect information assumption in the context of the one-sector neoclassical model. We show that the solution involves a recasting of the driving process in terms of estimates of the exogenous states and forecast errors made by households rather than the states themselves. Given observations on the driving ...
Journal Article
Expectations of large-scale asset purchases
During and after the recent financial crisis, the Federal Reserve turned to a number of unconventional tools to bolster the economy. The effectiveness of one such tool, large-scale asset purchases (LSAPs)?often referred to as quantitative easing?has been hard to measure. ; Efforts to estimate LSAP impact have often relied on an "event study" approach, focusing on short time intervals around the announcements of new LSAP programs. But these studies typically ignore the fact that financial market participants sometimes expect a given LSAP announcement in advance?and such expectations can ...
Working Paper
Estimating Macroeconomic Models of Financial Crises: An Endogenous Regime-Switching Approach
We estimate a workhorse DSGE model with an occasionally binding borrowing constraint. First, we propose a new specification of the occasionally binding constraint, where the transition between the unconstrained and constrained states is a stochastic function of the leverage level and the constraint multiplier. This specification maps into an endogenous regime-switching model. Second, we develop a general perturbation method for the solution of such a model. Third, we estimate the model with Bayesian methods to fit Mexico's business cycle and financial crisis history since 1981. The estimated ...
Journal Article
The Highs and Lows of Productivity Growth
Productivity growth shows evidence of switching between long periods of high and low average growth. Estimates suggest that the United States has been in the low-growth regime since 2004. Assuming this low growth continues, productivity growth in the year 2025 would be 0.6%. By dropping this assumption and allowing for a switch to consistent higher growth, an alternative estimate forecasts that the distribution of possible productivity growth across quarters could average about 1.1% in 2025.
Journal Article
Permanent and Transitory Effects of the 2008–09 Recession
Separating U.S. economic output into permanent and transitory components can help explain the effects of recessions and expansions. GDP growth shifted to a lower trend rate in 2000, indicating a slowdown long before the 2008–09 recession. GDP was substantially above trend before that recession; it then declined significantly and did not recover to its trend rate until 2017. The recession resulted in permanent losses to GDP. Without those permanent effects, GDP at the end of the latest expansion would have been about $380 billion or $1,460 per person higher.
Journal Article
Sudden Stops and COVID-19: Lessons from Mexico’s History
The COVID-19 pandemic produced a sharp contraction in capital flows in emerging markets during the spring of 2020. Such contractions are known as “sudden stops” and historically have been associated with significant downturns in a country’s economic activity. Evidence from Mexico’s financial crisis history suggests that sudden stops tend to exhibit a common pattern: the crisis lasts one to two years before a rapid but partial recovery, followed by years of protracted stagnation.
Working Paper
Perturbation methods for Markov-switching DSGE models
This paper develops a general perturbation methodology for constructing high-order approximations to the solutions of Markov-switching DSGE models. We introduce an important and practical idea of partitioning the Markov-switching parameter space so that a steady state is well defined. With this definition, we show that the problem of finding an approximation of any order can be reduced to solving a system of quadratic equations. We propose using the theory of Grobner bases in searching all the solutions to the quadratic system. This approach allows us to obtain all the approximations and ...
Journal Article
Have Lags in Monetary Policy Transmission Shortened?
The Federal Open Market Committee’s monetary policy has expanded beyond changing the federal funds rate to include forward guidance and balance sheet policy. Using these tools may shorten lags in monetary policy transmitting to inflation. Using a proxy funds rate that incorporates tightening from these additional policy tools, we find evidence of a shorter lag in policy transmission to inflation since 2009, though with high associated uncertainty.
Briefing
Anatomy of a Pandemic Recovery Across Sectors and Regions
Many have highlighted the disproportionate effect of the COVID-19 pandemic on certain sectors of the economy. The Bureau of Labor Statistics publishes data on employment by sector and state, which can show the fall and recovery in employment over the past two years at a disaggregated level. We find that just four of 10 sectors account for 75 percent of the fall in total employment during the pandemic. State-sector pairings with more dramatic falls in employment tended to see faster recoveries to compensate, indicating these job losses were often temporary separations. We also find evidence ...