Search Results
Working Paper
Bias in Local Projections
Local projections (LPs) are a popular tool in macroeconomic research. We show that LPs are often used with very small samples in the time dimension. Consequently, LP point estimates can be severely biased. We derive simple expressions for this bias and propose a way to bias-correct LPs. Small sample bias can also lead autocorrelation-robust standard errors to dramatically understate sampling uncertainty. We argue they should be avoided in LPs like the ones we study. Using identified monetary policy shocks, we demonstrate that the bias in point estimates can be economically meaningful and the ...
Working Paper
Slow Learning
This paper provides an analytic characterization of the speed of convergence under learning to a rational expectations equilibrium (REE) for a large class of multivariate models. We show that learning is slower when people's beliefs about model outcomes are more self-fulfilling. The paper also investigates which features of a model economy make beliefs more self-fulfilling, using variants of the simple new-Keynesian model and a medium-scale DSGE model. For empirically plausible specifications of these models, convergence of a learning equilibrium to the REE is so slow that analysis based on ...
Working Paper
Discussion of "Dynamic Causal Effects in a Nonlinear World: the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly''
This comment discusses Kolesár and Plagborg-Møller's (2025) finding that the standard linear local projection (LP) estimator recovers the average marginal effect (AME) even in nonlinear settings. We apply and discuss a subset their results using a simple nonlinear time series model, emphasizing the role of the weighting function and the impact of nonlinearities on small-sample properties.
Working Paper
Bias in Local Projections
Local projections (LPs) are a popular tool in applied macroeconomic research. We survey the related literature and find that LPs are often used with very small samples in the time dimension. With small sample sizes, given the high degree of persistence in most macroeconomic data, impulse responses estimated by LPs can be severely biased. This is true even if the right-hand-side variable in the LP is iid, or if the data set includes a large cross-section (i.e., panel data). We derive a simple expression to elucidate the source of the bias. Our expression highlights the interdependence between ...
Working Paper
Supply-Side Effects of Pandemic Mortality: Insights from an Overlapping-Generations Model
We use an overlapping generation model to explore the implications of mortality during pandemics for the economy's productive capacity. Under current epidemiological projections for the progression of COVID-19, our model suggests that mortality will have, in itself, at most small effects on output and factor prices. The reason is that projected mortality is small in proportion to the population and skewed toward individuals who are retired from the labor force. That said, we show that if the spread of COVID-19 is not contained, or if the ongoing pandemic were to follow a mortality pattern ...
Working Paper
Measured Inflation and the New-Keynesian Model
Researchers typically compare inflation in the new Keynesian (NK) model to published inflation measures constructed from indices like the CPI. Inflation in the standard NK model without price indexation is bounded above. The model analogue of fixed-weight inflation measures, like the CPI, is not. When inflation is in the range of values observed after 2021, there is a substantial difference between model-based and fixed-weight measures of inflation. This finding poses a challenge to using linear approximations to the NK model in environments with moderately high inflation and implies that ...
Working Paper
Monetary Policy and the Predictability of Nominal Exchange Rates
This paper documents two facts about countries with floating exchange rates where monetary policy controls inflation using a short-term interest rate. First, the current real exchange rate predicts future changes in the nominal exchange rate at horizons greater than two years both in sample and out of sample. This predictability improves with the length of the horizon. Second, the real exchange rate is virtually uncorrelated with future inflation rates both in the short run and in the long run. We show that a large class of open-economy models is consistent with these findings and that, ...
Working Paper
A Time Series Model of Interest Rates With the Effective Lower Bound
Modeling interest rates over samples that include the Great Recession requires taking stock of the effective lower bound (ELB) on nominal interest rates. We propose a flexible time? series approach which includes a ?shadow rate??a notional rate that is less than the ELB during the period in which the bound is binding?without imposing no?arbitrage assumptions.{{p}}The approach allows us to estimate the behavior of trend real rates as well as expected future interest rates in recent years.
Working Paper
Are long-run inflation expectations anchored more firmly in the Euro area than in the United States?
This paper compares the recent evolution of long-run inflation expectations in the euro area and the United States, using evidence from financial markets and surveys of professional forecasters. Survey data indicate that long-run inflation expectations are reasonably well-anchored in both economies, but also reveal substantially greater dispersion across forecasters' long-horizon projections of U.S. inflation. Daily data on inflation swaps and nominal-indexed bond spreads--which gauge compensation for expected inflation and inflation risk--also suggest that long-run inflation expectations are ...