A Comparison of FIML and Robust Estimates of a Nonlinear Macroeconomic Model

The prediction accuracy of six estimators of econometric models are compared. Two of rthe estimators are ordinary least squares (OLS) and full-information maximum likelihood. (FML). The other four estimators are robust estimators in the sense that they give less weight to large residuals. One of the four estimators is approximately equivalent to the least-absolute-residual (LAR) estimator, one is a combination of OLS for small residuals and LAR for large residuals, one is an estimator proposed by John W. Tukey, and one is a combination of FIML and LAR. All of the estimators account for the first-order serial correlation of the error terms. The main conclusion is that robust estimators appear quite promising for the estimation of econometric models. Of the robust estimators considered in the paper, the one based on minimizing the sum of the absolute values of the residuals performed the best. The FIML estimator and the combination of the FIML and LAR estimators also appear promising.

Estimated Effects of the October 1979 Change in Monetary Policy on the 1980 Economy

On October 6. 1979, the Federal Reserve announced what most people interpreted as a change in monetary policy. The purpose of this paper is to estimate the effects of this change on the 1980-81 economy. The effects of the change are estimated from simulations with my model of the U.S. economy (1976, 1980b).

Estimated Inflation Costs Had European Unemployment Been Reduced in the 1980s by Macro Prices

This paper uses a multicountry econometric model to estimate what the inflation costs would have been if macropolicies had reduced European unemployment in the 1982:1-1990:4 period. A "non-NAIRU" framework is proposed for thinking about these costs.

The Great Gatsby: Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Harvard, Oxford

Where did Fitzgerald get the idea of having Clay's Economics reside in Nick Carraway's library?

Analyzing Macroeconomic Forecastability

This paper estimates, using stochastic simulation and a multicountry macroeconometric model, the fraction of the forecast-error variance of output changes and the fraction of the forecast-error variance of inflation that are due to unpredictable asset-price changes. The results suggest that between about 25 and 37 percent of the forecast-error variance of output growth over 8 quarters is due to asset-price changes and between about 33 and 60 percent of the forecast-error variance of inflation over 8 quarters is due to asset-price changes. These estimates provide limits to the accuracy that can be expected from macroeconomic forecasting.Macroeconomic forecasting, Recessions, Booms

Predicting Electoral College Victory Probabilities from State Probability Data

A method is proposed in this paper for predicting Electoral College victory probabilities from state probability data. A "ranking" assumption about dependencies across states is made that greatly simplifies the analysis. The method issued to analyze state probability data from the Intrade political betting market. The Intrade prices of various contracts are quite close to what would be expected under the ranking assumption. Under the joint hypothesis that the Intrade price ranking is correct and the ranking assumption is correct, President Bush should not have won any state ranked below a state that he lost. He did not win any such state. The ranking assumption is also consistent with the fact that the two parties spent essentially nothing in most states in 2004.Electoral College victory probabilities, political betting markets

Estimating Term Structure Equations Using Macroeconomic Variables

This paper begins with the expectations theory of the term structure of interest rates with constant term premia and then postulates how expectations of future short term interest rates are formed. Expectations depend in part on predictions from a set of VAR equations and in part on the current and two lagged values of the short term interest rate. The results suggest that there is relevant independent information in both the VAR equations' predictions and the current and two lagged values of the short rate. The model fits the long term interest rate data well, including the 2004-2006 period, which some have found a puzzle. The properties of the model are consistent with the response of the long term U.S. Treasury bond rate to surprise price and employment announcements. The overall results suggest that long term rates can be fairly well explained by modeling expectation formation of future short term rates.Term structure equations, Expectations theory

Interest Rate and Exchange Rate Determination

Since Meese and Rogoff's (1983) results, the view has become fairly widespread that structural models of exchange rates are not very good. There is, however, somewhat of a dichotomy in the literature between those who deal with small models, where the focus is almost exclusively on exchange rates, and those who deal with large macroeconometric models, where exchange rates make up only a small subset of the endogenous variables. Most of the emphasis has been on the first approach, and it may be that exchange rate determination within the context of large models has not been given a sufficient hearing. Exchange rate and interest rate equations are estimated and analyzed for 17 countries in this paper. This study is part of a larger project of constructing a multicountry econometric model. One of the aims of the paper is to see if the exchange rate equations that are part of my multicountry model also suffer from the Meese and Rogoff criticism. The results show that the view that structural exchange rate models are not very good may be too pessimistic.