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Journal Article
On the record: putting people into economic policy: a conversation with Finn Kydland
Finn Kydland, a Dallas Fed consultant since 1994, shared the 2004 Nobel Prize in economics with Edward C. Prescott for their groundbreaking work incorporating decisionmaking by individuals, households and firms into economic models.
Working Paper
Introduction to the macroeconomic dynamics: special issues on money, credit, and liquidity
We motivate and provide an overview to New Monetarist Economics. We then briefly describe the individual contributions to the Macroeconomics Dynamics special issues on money, credit and liquidity.
Working Paper
A cross-country quarterly database of real house prices: a methodological note
We build from (mainly) publicly available national sources a database of (nominal and real) house prices?complemented with data on private disposable income (PDI)?for 19 advanced countries at a quarterly frequency, starting in the first quarter of 1975. We select a house price index for each country that is consistent with the U.S. FHFA quarterly nationwide house price index for existing single-family houses (formerly called OFHEO house price index), and extend the country series back to 1975 with available historical data whenever necessary. Each house price index is seasonallyadjusted over ...
Journal Article
'Rational inattention' guides overloaded brains, helps economists understand market behavior
Between Internet news sources, social media and email, people are awash in information, most of it accessible at near-zero cost. Yet, humans possess only a finite capacity to process all of it. The average email user, for example, receives dozens of messages per day. The messages can?t all receive equal attention. How carefully does someone read an email from a sibling or friend before crafting a reply? How closely does a person read an email from the boss?> ; Limitations on the ability to process information force people to make choices regarding the subjects to which they pay more or less ...
Working Paper
The dynamics of economics functions: modelling and forecasting the yield curve
The class of Functional Signal plus Noise (FSN) models is introduced that provides a new, general method for modelling and forecasting time series of economic functions. The underlying, continuous economic function (or "signal") is a natural cubic spline whose dynamic evolution is driven by a cointegrated vector autoregression for the ordinates (or "y-values") at the knots of the spline. The natural cubic spline provides flexible cross-sectional fit and results in a linear, state space model. This FSN model achieves dimension reduction, provides a coherent description of the observed ...
Working Paper
Have we underestimated the likelihood and severity of zero lower bound events?
Before the recent recession, the consensus among researchers was that the zero lower bound (ZLB) probably would not pose a significant problem for monetary policy as long as a central bank aimed for an inflation rate of about 2 percent; some have even argued that an appreciably lower target inflation rate would pose no problems. This paper reexamines this consensus in the wake of the financial crisis, which has seen policy rates at their effective lower bound for more than two years in the United States and Japan and near zero in many other countries. We conduct our analysis using a set of ...
Working Paper
Institutional causes of macroeconomic volatility
In this paper we investigate the relation between the quality of institutions and macroeconomic volatility. Using instrumental variable regressions, we show that higher barriers to entry lead to higher volatility. In particular, a one standard deviation increase in entry costs increases the standard deviation of output growth by roughly 40% of its average value in our sample. To the contrary, property rights protection has no statistically significant effect on volatility.
Journal Article
Estimating the macroeconomic effects of the Fed’s asset purchases
An analysis shows that the Federal Reserve?s large-scale asset purchases have been effective at reducing the economic costs of the zero lower bound on interest rates. Model simulations indicate that, by 2012, the past and projected expansion of the Fed?s securities holdings since late 2008 will lower the unemployment rate by 1 percentage points relative to what it would have been absent the purchases. The asset purchases also have probably prevented the U.S. economy from falling into deflation.
Working Paper
Macroeconomic effects of Federal Reserve forward guidance
A large output gap accompanied by stable inflation close to its target calls for further monetary accommodation, but the zero lower bound on interest rates has robbed the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) of the usual tool for its provision. We examine how public statements of FOMC intentions?forward guidance?can substitute for lower rates at the zero bound. We distinguish between Odyssean forward guidance, which publicly commits the FOMC to a future action, and Delphic forward guidance, which merely forecasts macroeconomic performance and likely monetary policy actions. Others have shown ...
Working Paper
International reserves and rollover risk
This paper provides a theoretical framework for quantitatively investigating the optimal accumulation of international reserves as a hedge against rollover risk. We study a dynamic model of endogenous default in which the government faces a tradeoff between the insurance benefits of reserves and the cost of keeping larger gross debt positions. A calibrated version of our model is able to rationalize large holdings of international reserves, as well as the procyclicality of reserves and gross debt positions. Model simulations are also consistent with spread dynamics and other key macroeconomic ...