The conquest of U.S. inflation: learning and robustness to model uncertainty

Previous studies have interpreted the rise and fall of U.S. inflation after World War II in terms of the Fed's changing views about the natural rate hypothesis but have left an important question unanswered. Why was the Fed so slow to implement the low-inflation policy recommended by a natural rate model even after economists had developed statistical evidence strongly in its favor? Our answer features model uncertainty. Each period a central bank sets the systematic part of the inflation rate in light of updated probabilities that it assigns to three competing models of the Phillips curve. Cautious behavior induced by model uncertainty can explain why the central bank presided over the inflation of the 1970s even after the data had convinced it to place much the highest probability on the natural rate model. JEL Classification: E31, E58, E65anticipated utility, Bayes' law, natural unemployment rate, Phillips curve, Robustness

Fiscal shocks and real exchange rate dynamics: Some evidence for Latin America

This paper analyses the effects of fiscal shocks using a two-country macroeconomic model for output, labour input, government spending and relative prices which provides the orthogonality restrictions for obtaining the structural shocks. Dynamic simulation techniques are then applied, in particular to shed light on the possible effects of fiscal imbalances on the real exchange rate in the case of six Latin American countries. Using quarterly data over the period 1980-2006, we find that in a majority of cases fiscal shocks are the main driving force of real exchange rate fluctuations

Fiscal Shocks and Real Exchange Rate Dynamics: Some Evidence for Latin America

This paper analyses the effects of fiscal shocks using a two-country macroeconomic model for output, labour input, government spending and relative prices which provides the orthogonality restrictions for obtaining the structural shocks. Dynamic simulation techniques are then applied, in particular to shed light on the possible effects of fiscal imbalances on the real exchange rate in the case of six Latin American countries. Using quarterly data over the period 1980-2006, we find that in a majority of cases fiscal shocks are the main driving force of real exchange rate fluctuations.fiscal shocks, real exchange rate, Latin American countries

A non-linear analysis of Gibson's paradox in the Netherlands, 1800-2012

This paper adopts a multivariate, non-linear framework to analyse Gibson’s paradox in the Netherlands over the period 1800-2012. Specifically, SSA (singular spectrum) and MSSA (multichannel singular spectrum) techniques are used. It is shown that changes in monetary policy regimes or volatility in the price of gold by themselves cannot account for the behaviour of government bond yields and prices in the Netherlands over the last 200 years. However, the inclusion of changes in the real rate of return on capital, M1, primary credit rate, expected inflation, and money purchasing power enables a nonlinear model to account for a sizeable percentage of the total variance of Dutch bond yields

Large Panels with Common Factors and Spatial Correlations

This paper considers the statistical analysis of large panel data sets where even after conditioning on common observed effects the cross section units might remain dependently distributed. This could arise when the cross section units are subject to unobserved common effects and/or if there are spill over effects due to spatial or other forms of local dependencies. The paper provides an overview of the literature on cross section dependence, introduces the concepts of time-specific weak and strong cross section dependence and shows that the commonly used spatial models are examples of weak cross section dependence. It is then established that the Common Correlated Effects (CCE) estimator of panel data model with a multifactor error structure, recently advanced by Pesaran (2006), continues to provide consistent estimates of the slope coefficient, even in the presence of spatial error processes. Small sample properties of the CCE estimator under various patterns of cross section dependence, including spatial forms, are investigated by Monte Carlo experiments. Results show that the CCE approach works well in the presence of weak and/or strong cross sectionally correlated errors. We also explore the role of certain characteristics of spatial processes in determining the performance of CCE estimators, such as the form and intensity of spatial dependence, and the sparseness of the spatial weight matrix

Asymmetric Shocks and Co-movement of Price Indices

This paper is an attempt to gauge the relationship between the long run paths of consumer price index and wholesale price index of Pakistan. For the empirical analysis the Johansen co-integration technique has been applied on monthly data (1978 to 2010) of WPI and CPI. This paper found that both the indices are co-integrated in the long run. Thus the deviations in movements of WPI and CPI in the short run are transitory and both the indices will converge to their coherent path in the long run. Therefore, inflation computed from CPI can be used as official measure of inflation without worrying for short run movements of WPI.Price Level, Time Series Models, Monetary Policy

Debt dynamics in Europe: a network general equilibrium GVAR approach

In this work, we investigate the dynamic interdependencies among the EU12 economies using a competitive general equilibrium network system representation. Additionally, using Bayesian techniques, we estimate the autoregressive scheme that characterizes the equilibrium price system of the network, while characterizing each economy/node in the universe of our network in terms of its degree of pervasiveness. In this context, we unveil the dominant(s) unit(s) in our model and estimate the dynamic linkages between the economies/nodes. Lastly, in terms of robustness analysis, we compare the findings of the degree pervasiveness of each economy against other popular quantitative methods in the literature. According to our findings, the economy of Germany acts as weakly dominant entity in the EU12 economy. Meanwhile, all shocks die out in the short run, without any long lasting effect

Estimating a European Demand for Money

European Monetary Union will come into existence in 1999. This raises questions related to the monetary policy targets that will be adopted by the European Central Bank (ECB). For both likely candidates, targeting a money aggregate or an inflation target, the existence of a stable money demand function at a European level is important. In this paper estimates of such a European money demand for narrow and broad money for the actual 11 EMU countries based on quarterly aggregate data from 1964 to 1994 are presented. It is argued that statistically satisfactory and economically interpretable functions can be found. The robustness of the results is further evaluated using alternative country groups. Moreover, the estimated models appear to be stable over a period of 20 quarters. This raises the hopes that the ECB will face a stable money demand and be able - at least for a certain time - to use past aggregate data for policy purposes.European Money Demand, European Monetary Union, Monetary Policy

A cluster driven log-volatility factor model: a deepening on the source of the volatility clustering

We introduce a new factor model for log volatilities that performs dimensionality reduction and considers contributions globally through the market, and locally through cluster structure and their interactions. We do not assume a-priori the number of clusters in the data, instead using the Directed Bubble Hierarchical Tree (DBHT) algorithm to fix the number of factors. We use the factor model and a new integrated non parametric proxy to study how volatilities contribute to volatility clustering. Globally, only the market contributes to the volatility clustering. Locally for some clusters, the cluster itself contributes statistically to volatility clustering. This is significantly advantageous over other factor models, since the factors can be chosen statistically, whilst also keeping economically relevant factors. Finally, we show that the log volatility factor model explains a similar amount of memory to a Principal Components Analysis (PCA) factor model and an exploratory factor model