Search Results
Briefing
The Stars Our Destination: An Update for Our R* Model
We report and discuss recent estimates of the natural real rate of interest, denoted r*. We analyze how the current flow of data renders r* estimates less reliable, and we consider some changes in the specification of the long-standing Lubik-Matthes model.
Briefing
Using Inventories to Help Explain Post-1984 Business Cycles
Real business cycle (RBC) models have been highly successful at explaining business cycles that occurred before 1984. But since then, shifts in comovements and relative volatilities of key economic aggregates have challenged their preeminence. One possible refinement of the standard RBC model is to include multiple stages of production. This extension allows researchers to use inventory data to estimate the discount rate that firms use to assess future income streams. The results indicate that variations in the discount rate reflect financial frictions that have become significant drivers of ...
Working Paper
Inventories, inflation dynamics, and the New Keynesian Phillips curve
We introduce inventories into an otherwise standard New Keynesian model and study the implications for inflation dynamics. Inventory holdings are motivated as a means to generate sales for demand-constrained firms. We derive various representations of the New Keynesian Phillips curve with inventories and show that one of these specifications is observationally equivalent to the standard model with respect to the behavior of inflation when the model's cross-equation restrictions are imposed. However, the driving variable in the New Keynesian Phillips curve - real marginal cost - is ...
Journal Article
Does Intra-Firm Bargaining Matter for Business Cycle Dynamics?
We analyze the implications of intra-firm bargaining for business cycle dynamics in models with large firms and search frictions. Intra-firm bargaining implies a feedback from the marginal revenue product to wage setting, which leads firms to over-hire in order to reduce workers' bargaining position within the firm. The keys to this effect are decreasing returns and/or downward-sloping demand. We show that equilibrium wages and employment are higher in steady state compared with a bargaining framework in which firms neglect this feedback effect. However, the effects of intra-firm bargaining ...
Working Paper
The Changing Nature of Technology Shocks
We document changes to the pattern of technology shocks and their propagation in post-war U.S. data. Using an agnostic identification procedure, we show that the dominant shock driving total factor productivity (TFP) is akin to a diffusion or news shock and that shock transmission has changed over time. Specifically, the behavior of hours worked is notably different before and after the 1980s. In addition, the importance of technology shocks as a major driver of aggregate fluctuations has increased over time. They play a dominant role in the second subsample, but much less so in the first. We ...
Working Paper
What Drives Inventory Accumulation? News on Rates of Return and Marginal Costs
We study the effects of news shocks on inventory accumulation in a structural VAR framework. We establish that inventories react strongly and positively to news about future increases in total factor productivity. Theory suggests that the transmission channel of news shocks to inventories works through movements in marginal costs, through movements in sales, or through interest rates. We provide evidence that changes in external and internal rates of return are central to the transmission for such news shocks. We do not find evidence of a strong substitution effect that shifts production from ...
Working Paper
Real Rates and Consumption Smoothing in a Low Interest Rate Environment: The Case of Japan
We study the dynamics of consumption, the real interest rate, and measures of labor input in Japan over the period from 1985-2014. We identify structural breaks in macroeconomic aggregates during the 1990s and associate them with the zero interest rate policy pursued by the Bank of Japan and the surprise increase in the consumption tax rate in April 1997. Formal estimation using the Generalized Methods of Moments shows that the mid-1990s are characterized by breaks in the structural parameters governing household consumption and labor supply decisions. Specifically, following the tax hike and ...
Working Paper
How To Go Viral: A COVID-19 Model with Endogenously Time-Varying Parameters
This paper estimates a panel model with endogenously time-varying parameters for COVID-19 cases and deaths in U.S. states. The functional form for infections incorporates important features of epidemiological models but is flexibly parameterized to capture different trajectories of the pandemic. Daily deaths are modeled as a spike-and-slab regression on lagged cases. The paper's Bayesian estimation reveals that social distancing and testing have significant effects on the parameters. For example, a 10 percentage point increase in the positive test rate is associated with a 2 percentage point ...