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Showing results 1 to 10 of approximately 53.
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Speech
\"Classic Policy Benchmarks for Heterogeneous-Agent Economies,\" Modelling the Macroeconomy in Risky Times, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, St. Louis, Mo.
Presented at Modelling the Macroeconomy in Risky Times, National Institute of Economic and Social Research, St. Louis, Mo.
Journal Article
Inflation disconnect?
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
Income differences around the globe go beyond physical, human capital
Differences in physical and human capital don't fully explain the staggering differences in living standards around the globe. The high cost of starting a new business and the difficulties in obtaining financing in some countries also are key factors.
Working Paper
Externalities, Endogenous Productivity, and Poverty Traps
We present a version of the neoclassical model with an endogenous industry structure. We construct a distribution of firms? productivity that implies multiple steady-state equilibria even with an arbitrarily small degree of increasing returns to scale. While the most productive firms operate across all the steady states, in a poverty trap less productive firms operate as well. This results in lower average firm productivity and total factor productivity. The distributions of employment by firm size across steady states are consistent with the empirical observation that poor countries have a ...
Working Paper
Optimal Monetary Policy for the Masses
We study nominal GDP targeting as optimal monetary policy in a simple and stylized model with a credit market friction. The macroeconomy we study has considerable income inequality, which gives rise to a large private sector credit market. There is an important credit market friction because households participating in the credit market use non-state contingent nominal contracts (NSCNC). We extend previous results in this model by allowing for substantial intra-cohort heterogeneity. The heterogeneity is substantial enough that we can approach measured Gini coefficients for income, financial ...
Speech
\"Classic Policy Benchmarks for Heterogeneous Agent Economies,\" Monetary Policy and Heterogeneity Conference, Hong Kong Monetary Authority and Federal Reserve Bank of New York, Hong Kong, China.
There has been increasing interest in large-scale heterogeneous agent DSGE models. These models have realistic degrees of heterogeneity?approaching observed Gini coefficients in U.S. data. They more directly address issues around income, financial wealth and consumption inequality. What is the role of monetary policy?
Working Paper
Comovement: it's not a puzzle
A defining feature of business cycles is the comovement of inputs at the sectoral level with aggregate activity. Standard models cannot account for this phenomenon. This paper develops and estimates a two-sector dynamic general equilibrium model that can account for this key regularity. My model incorporates three shocks to the economy: monetary policy shocks, neutral technology shocks, and embodied technology shocks in the capital-producing sector. The estimated model is able to account for the response of the US economy to all three shocks. Using this model, I argue that the key friction ...
Journal Article
Gas-price inflation
Working Paper
Federal reserve forecasts: asymmetry and state-dependence
We jointly test the rationality of the Federal Reserve?s Greenbook forecasts of infiation, unemployment, and output growth using a multivariate nonseparable asymmetric loss function. We find that the forecasts are rationalizable and exhibit directional asymmetry. The degree of asymmetry depends on the phase of the business cycle: The Greenbook forecasts of output growth are too pessimistic in recessions and too optimistic in expansions. The change in monetary policy that occured in the late 1970s has been attributed in the literature to the Fed coming to terms with the difficulties in ...