Using a Bayesian likelihood approach, we estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model for the US economy using seven macro-economic time series. The model incorporates many types of real and nominal frictions and seven types of structural shocks. We show that this model is able to compete with Bayesian Vector Autoregression models in out-of-sample prediction. We investigate the relative empirical importance of the various frictions. Finally, using the estimated model we address a number of key issues in business cycle analysis: What are the sources of business cycle fluctuations? Can the model explain the cross-correlation between output and inflation? What are the effects of productivity on hours worked? What are the sources of the "Great Moderation"?

/pdf/shocks-and-frictions-in-us-business-cycles-a-bayesian-dsge-d1f6ynd58q.pdf

Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach

We estimate a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model for the US economy. The model incorporates many types of real and nominal frictions: sticky nominal price and wage setting, habit formation in consumption, investment adjustment costs, variable capital utilisation and fixed costs in production. It also contains many types of shocks including productivity, labour supply, investment, preference, cost-push and monetary policy shocks. Using Bayesian estimation techniques, the relative importance of the various frictions and shocks in explaining the US business cycle are empirically investigated. We also show that this model is able to outperform standard VAR and BVAR models in out-of-sample prediction.

/pdf/shocks-and-frictions-in-us-business-cycles-a-bayesian-dsge-2gcs6kvruw.pdf

Shocks and frictions in US business cycles: A Bayesian DSGE approach

https://eml.berkeley.edu/~webfac/gorodnichenko/gertler.pdf

A model of unconventional monetary policy

A common approach to evaluating robustness to omitted variable bias is to observe coefficient movements after inclusion of controls. This is informative only if selection on observables is informative about selection on unobservables. Although this link is known in theory in existing literature, very few empirical articles approach this formally. I develop an extension of the theory that connects bias explicitly to coefficient stability. I show that it is necessary to take into account coefficient and R-squared movements. I develop a formal bounding argument. I show two validation exercises and discuss application to the economics literature. Supplementary materials for this article are available online.

/pdf/unobservable-selection-and-coefficient-stability-theory-and-1r9lpwnnl2.pdf

Unobservable Selection and Coefficient Stability: Theory and Evidence

We develop a canonical framework to think about credit market frictions and aggregate economic activity in the context of the current crisis. We use the framework to address two issues in particular: first, how disruptions in financial intermediation can induce a crisis that affects real activity; and second, how various credit market interventions by the central bank and the Treasury of the type we have seen recently, might work to mitigate the crisis. We make use of earlier literature to develop our framework and characterize how very recent literature is incorporating insights from the crisis.

/pdf/financial-intermediation-and-credit-policy-in-business-cycle-4jebeme7xo.pdf

Financial Intermediation and Credit Policy in Business Cycle Analysis

Monetary policy and the private sector behavior of the US economy are modeled as a time varying structural vector autoregression, where the sources of time variation are both the coefficients and the variance covariance matrix of the innovations. The paper develops a new, simple modeling strategy for the law of motion of the variance covariance matrix and proposes an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for the model likelihood/posterior numerical evaluation. The main empirical conclusions are: 1) both systematic and non-systematic monetary policy have changed during the last forty years. In particular, systematic responses of the interest rate to inflation and unemployment exhibit a trend toward a more aggressive behavior, despite remarkable oscillations; 2) this has had a negligible effect on the rest of the economy. The role played by exogenous non-policy shocks seems more important than interest rate policy in explaining the high inflation and unemployment episodes in recent US economic history.

/pdf/time-varying-structural-vector-autoregressions-and-monetary-3ch9uubw9g.pdf

Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy

We investigate the sources of the important shifts in the volatility of US mac - roeconomic variables in the postwar period. To this end, we propose the esti - mation of DSGE models allowing for time variation in the volatility of the structural innovations. We apply our estimation strategy to a large-scale model of the business cycle and find that shocks specific to the equilibrium condition of investment account for most of the sharp decline in volatility of the last two decades. (JEL C51, E32)

/pdf/the-time-varying-volatility-of-macroeconomic-fluctuations-3tttxxmgab.pdf

The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations

Monetary policy and the private sector behavior of the US economy are modeled as a time varying structural vector autoregression, where the sources of time variation are both the coefficients and the variance covariance matrix of the innovations. The paper develops a new, simple modeling strategy for the law of motion of the variance covariance matrix and proposes an efficient Markov chain Monte Carlo algorithm for the model likelihood/posterior numerical evaluation. The main empirical conclusions are: 1) both systematic and non-systematic monetary policy have changed during the last forty years. In particular, long run systematic responses of the interest rate to inflation and unemployment exhibit a trend toward a more aggressive behavior, despite remarkable oscillations; 2) this has had a negligible effect on the rest of the economy. The role played by exogenous non-policy shocks seems much more important than monetary policy in explaining the high inflation and unemployment episodes in recent US economic history.

/pdf/time-varying-structural-vector-autoregressions-and-monetary-3ihiuvjrh5.pdf

https://www.nber.org/system/files/working_papers/w15570/w15570.pdf

Investment shocks and business cycles

We use Bayesian methods to estimate two models of post WWII US inflation rates with drifting stochastic volatility and drifting coefficients One model is univariate, the other a multivariate autoregression We define the inflation gap as the deviation of inflation from a pure random walk component of inflation and use both of our models to study changes over time in the persistence of the inflation gap measured in terms of short- to medium-term predicability We present evidence that our measure of the inflation-gap persistence increased until Volcker brought mean inflation down in the early 1980s and that it then fell during the chairmanships of Volcker and Greenspan Stronger evidence for movements in inflation gap persistence emerges from the VAR than from the univariate model We interpret these changes in terms of a simple dynamic new Keynesian model that allows us to distinguish altered monetary policy rules and altered private sector parameters

Giorgio E. Primiceri

Papers

Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy

The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations

Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy

Investment shocks and business cycles

Inflation-Gap Persistence in the U.S