Search Results
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
Output dynamics in real business cycle models
The time series literature reports two stylized facts about output dynamics in the United States. GNP growth is positively autocorrelated over short horizons and negatively autocorrelated over longer horizons, and GNP has an important trend reverting component which has a hump-shaped moving average representation. We consider whether various real business cycle (RBC) models are consistent with these stylized facts. ; We find that many RBC models have weak internal propagation mechanisms and must rely on exogenous factors to replicate both stylized facts. In particular, intertemporal ...
Working Paper
Common trends and common cycles in Canada: who knew so much has been going on?
It is generally accepted that convergence is well established for regional Canadian per capita outputs. The authors present evidence that long-run movements are driven by two stochastic common trends in this time series. This evidence casts doubt on the convergence hypothesis for Canada. Another prevalent belief is that Canada forms an optimal currency area (OCA). The authors uncover three serially correlated common cycles whose asymmetries suggest Canada is not an OCA. Their common trend-common cycle decomposition of regional outputs also reveals that trend shocks dominate fluctuations in ...
Working Paper
Model confidence sets for forecasting models
The paper introduces the model confidence set (MCS) and applies it to the selection of forecasting models. An MCS is a set of models that is constructed so that it will contain the ?best? forecasting model, given a level of confidence. Thus, an MCS is analogous to a confidence interval for a parameter. The MCS acknowledges the limitations of the data so that uninformative data yield an MCS with many models, whereas informative data yield an MCS with only a few models. We revisit the empirical application in Stock and Watson (1999) and apply the MCS procedure to their set of inflation ...
Discussion Paper
The permanent income hypothesis when the bliss point is stochastic
A version of the permanent income model is developed in which the bliss point of the agent is stochastic. The bliss point depends on realizations of the stochastic process generating labor income and a random shock. The model predicts consumption and labor income share a common trend and that a linear combination of current consumption, current labor income, and once lagged consumption is stationary. Empirically, consumption appears more serially correlated than the model is capable of supporting. Further, the volatility of consumption appears sensitive to time variation in real interest ...
Working Paper
Testing the significance of calendar effects
This paper studies tests of calendar effects in equity returns. It is necessary to control for all possible calendar effects to avoid spurious results. The authors contribute to the calendar effects literature and its significance with a test for calendar-specific anomalies that conditions on the nuisance of possible calendar effects. Thus, their approach to test for calendar effects produces robust data-mining results. Unfortunately, attempts to control for a large number of possible calendar effects have the downside of diminishing the power of the test, making it more difficult to detect ...
Working Paper
Interwar U.K. unemployment: the Benjamin and Kochin hypothesis or the legacy of “just” taxes?
Benjamin and Kochin (1979, Journal of Political Economy) present regression estimates to support their hypothesis that larger unemployment benefits increased U.K. unemployment post?World War I (WWI). The Benjamin-Kochin (BK) regression is easy to replicate. When the replication is widened to include income tax rates and WWI observations using Bayesian Monte Carlo methods, the evidence moves against the BK hypothesis and in favor of regressions that include the capital income tax rate. We explain these results with Daunton (2002, Just Taxes). He argues that U.K. tax rates were set during WWI ...
Working Paper
Investment and the current account in the short run and the long run
Theoretical models of the relationship between investment and the current account impose restrictions on the joint dynamic behavior of these variables. These restrictions come in two forms. One imposes causal orderings on investment and the current account. The other restriction concerns the permanent responses of these variables to different shocks. We use these restrictions to identify empirically structural shocks from vector autoregressions of investment and the current account for Canada. Under certain identifications, our results support the implications of the intertemporal, small open ...
Working Paper
Identifying the New Keynesian Phillips curve
Phillips curves are central to discussions of inflation dynamics and monetary policy. New Keynesian Phillips curves describe how past inflation, expected future inflation, and a measure of real marginal cost or an output gap drive the current inflation rate. This paper studies the (potential) weak identification of these curves under generalized methods of moments (GMM) and traces this syndrome to a lack of persistence in either exogenous variables or shocks. The authors employ analytic methods to understand the identification problem in several statistical environments: under strict ...
Working Paper
Choosing the best volatility models: the model confidence set approach
This paper applies the model confidence sets (MCS) procedure to a set of volatility models. A MSC is analogous to a confidence interval of parameter in the sense that the former contains the best forecasting model with a certain probability. The key to the MCS is that it acknowledges the limitations of the information in the data. The empirical exercise is based on fifty-five volatility models, and the MCS includes about a third of these when evaluated by mean square error, whereas the MCS contains only a VGARCH model when mean absolute deviation criterion is used. We conduct a simulation ...