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Working Paper
Bayesian estimation of DSGE models
We survey Bayesian methods for estimating dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models in this article. We focus on New Keynesian (NK)DSGE models because of the interest shown in this class of models by economists in academic and policy-making institutions. This interest stems from the ability of this class of DSGE model to transmit real, nominal, and fiscal and monetary policy shocks into endogenous fluctuations at business cycle frequencies. Intuition about these propagation mechanisms is developed by reviewing the structure of a canonical NKDSGE model. Estimation and evaluation of ...
Working Paper
New Keynesian Optimal Policy Models: An Empirical Assessment
This paper estimates two optimization-based sticky-price New Keynesian models and assesses how well they describe U.S. output, inflation, and interest rate dynamics. We consider models in which either internal habit formation influence consumption behavior, and in which Calvo-pricing and inflation indexation generate price and inflation inertia. Subject to constraints dictated by household and firm behavior, monetary policy is set under discretion and the model’s time-consistent equilibrium is employed to estimate key behavioral parameters. We find that specifications estimated on ...
Journal Article
Policy analysis using DSGE models: an introduction
Many central banks have come to rely on dynamic stochastic general equilibrium, or DSGE, models to inform their economic outlook and to help formulate their policy strategies. But while their use is familiar to policymakers and academics, these models are typically not well known outside these circles. This article introduces the basic structure, logic, and application of the DSGE framework to a broader public by providing an example of its use in monetary policy analysis. The authors present and estimate a simple New Keynesian DSGE model, highlighting the core features that this basic ...
Journal Article
Are markets really efficient?
Report
Evaluating interest rate rules in an estimated DSGE model
The empirical DSGE (dynamic stochastic general equilibrium) literature pays surprisingly little attention to the behavior of the monetary authority. Alternative policy rule specifications abound, but their relative merit is rarely discussed. We contribute to filling this gap by comparing the fit of a large set of interest rate rules (fifty-five in total), which we estimate within a simple New Keynesian model. We find that specifications in which monetary policy responds to inflation and to deviations of output from its efficient level?the one that would prevail in the absence of ...
Journal Article
No tears for Keynes
Working Paper
Generalizing the Taylor principle
Recurring change in a monetary policy function that maps endogenous variables into policy choices alters both the nature and the efficacy of the Taylor principle---the proposition that central banks can stabilize the macroeconomy by raising their interest rate instrument more than one-for-one in response to higher inflation. A monetary policy process is a set of policy rules and a probability distribution over the rules. We derive restrictions on that process that satisfy a long-run Taylor principle and deliver unique equilibria in two standard models. A process can satisfy the Taylor ...
Working Paper
International competition and inflation: a New Keynesian perspective
We develop and estimate an open economy New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) in which variable demand elasticities give rise to changes in desired markups in response to changes in competitive pressure from abroad. A parametric restriction on our specification yields the standard NKPC, in which the elasticity is constant, and there is no role for foreign competition to influence domestic inflation. By comparing the unrestricted and restricted specifications, we provide evidence that foreign competition plays an important role in accounting for the behavior of inflation in the traded goods ...
Working Paper
Discretion Rather than Rules: Equilibrium Uniqueness and Forward Guidance with Inconsistent Optimal Plans
New Keynesian economies with active interest rate rules gain equilibrium determinacy from the central bank?s incredible off-equilibrium-path promises (Cochrane, 2011). We suppose instead that the central bank sets interest rate paths and occasionally has the discretion to change them. Private agents taking future central bank actions and their own best responses to them as given reduces the scope for self-fulfilling prophecies. With empirically-reasonable frequencies of central-bank reoptimization, the monetary-policy game has a unique Markov-perfect equilibrium wherein forward guidance ...
Working Paper
Supply-side policies and the zero lower bound
This paper examines how supply-side policies may play a role in fighting a low aggregate demand that traps an economy at the zero lower bound (ZLB) of nominal interest rates. Future increases in productivity or reductions in mark-ups triggered by supply-side policies generate a wealth effect that pulls current consumption and output up. Since the economy is at the ZLB, increases in the interest rates do not undo this wealth effect, as we will have in the case outside the ZLB. The authors illustrate this mechanism with a simple two-period New Keynesian model. They discuss possible objections ...