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A search for a structural Phillips curve
The foundation of the New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) is a model of price setting with nominal rigidities that implies that the dynamics of inflation are well explained by the evolution of real marginal costs. In this paper, we analyze whether this is a structurally invariant relationship. We first estimate an unrestricted time-series model for inflation, unit labor costs, and other variables, and present evidence that their joint dynamics are well represented by a vector autoregression (VAR) with drifting coefficients and volatilities. We then apply a two-step minimum distance estimator ...
Journal Article
What is the optimal rate of inflation?
Journal Article
Inflation uncertainty and excess returns on stocks and banks
This paper investigates the relation between inflation uncertainty and excess returns on stocks and bonds. It quantifies the effect of inflation uncertainty by comparing actual excess returns with those expected by a hypothetical naive investor who treats inflation forecasts as if they were known with certainty. The evidence suggests that ignoring inflation uncertainty results in only small pricing errors, on average.
Journal Article
Using consumption to track movements in trend GDP
Working Paper
Effects of the Hodrick-Prescott filter on trend and difference stationary time series: implications for business cycle research
This paper studies the effects of applying the Hodrick-Prescott filter to trend and difference stationary time series. Applying the Hodrick-Prescott filter to an integrated process is similar to detrending a random walk. When the data are difference stationary, the Hodrick-Prescott filter can generate business cycle dynamics even if none are present in the original data. We study the implications for interpreting stylized facts about business cycles and for analyzing data generated by real business cycle models.
Journal Article
Should the Fed take deliberate steps to deflate asset price bubbles?
On several occasions over the last few years, various economists and policymakers have expressed the opinion that the stock market was overvalued. They often compared the situation with the 1920s and warned that the U.S. economy was headed for a similar collapse. Some analysts also suggested that the Fed raise interest rates to slow the rate of "asset inflation," on the grounds that it would be better to burst a speculative bubble in its early stages than to let it develop and suffer the inevitable crash. This paper takes up the other side of the debate and argues that deliberate ...
Working Paper
Estimating dynamic rational expectations models when the trend specification is uncertain
This paper explores various strategies for estimating rational expectations models when the trend specification is uncertain. One approach modified the likelihood function in order to reduce the influence of low-frequency dynamics. Hansen and Sargent (1993) conjectured that this would have little cost in correctly specified models and would improve estimated in mis-specified models. This paper confirms the first part of their conjecture but not the second. Contrary to intuition, the effects of trend-specification errors are spread across the entire frequency domain and are not confined to ...