Federal Reserve System

About: Federal Reserve System is a other organization based out in Washington D.C., District of Columbia, United States. It is known for research contribution in the topics: Monetary policy & Inflation. The organization has 2373 authors who have published 10301 publications receiving 511979 citations.

Do Oil Prices Help Forecast U.S. Real GDP? The Role of Nonlinearities and Asymmetries

Abstract: There is a long tradition of using oil prices to forecast U.S. real GDP. It has been suggested that the predictive relationship between the price of oil and one-quarter-ahead U.S. real GDP is nonlinear in that (a) oil price increases matter only to the extent that they exceed the maximum oil price in recent years, and that (b) oil price decreases do not matter at all. We examine, first, whether the evidence of in-sample predictability in support of this view extends to out-of-sample forecasts. Second, we discuss how to extend this forecasting approach to higher horizons. Third, we compare the resulting class of nonlinear models to alternative economically plausible nonlinear specifications and examine which aspect of the model is most useful for forecasting. We show that the asymmetry embodied in commonly used nonlinear transformations of the price of oil is not helpful for out-of-sample forecasting; more robust and often more accurate real GDP forecasts are obtained from symmetric nonlinear models based ...

New evidence on inflation persistence and price stickiness in the euro area: implications for macro modeling

Abstract: This paper evaluates new evidence on price-setting practices and inflation persistence in the euro area with respect to its implications for macro modeling. It argues that several of the most commonly used assumptions in micro-founded macro models are seriously challenged by the new findings. (JEL: E31, E52)

Breaks in the Variability and Comovement of G-7 Economic Growth

Abstract: This paper investigates breaks in the variability and comovement of output, consumption, and investment in the G-7 economies. In contrast with most other papers on comovement, we test for changes in comovement, allowing for breaks in mean and variance. Despite claims that rising integration among these economies has increased output correlations among them, we find no clear evidence of an increase in correlation of growth rates of output, consumption, or investment. This finding is true even for the United States and Canada, which have seen a tremendous increase in bilateral trade shares, and for the euro-area members of the G-7.

How Well Does the New Keynesian Sticky-Price Model Fit the Data?

Abstract: The New Keynesian sticky-price model has become increasingly popular for monetary-policy analysis. However, there have been conflicting results on the empirical performance of the model. In this paper, I attempt to reconcile these conflicting claims by examining various specifications of the model within the context of a single framework. I find that the New Keynesian model does not fit the U.S. data well; in particular, the model requires additional lags of inflation not implied by the model under rational expectations. These additional lags have the interpretation that some fraction of the population uses a simple univariate rule for forecasting inflation. The views expressed in this paper are those of the author and should not be construed as those of any member of the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve system or any other member of its staff. Earlier versions of this paper were presented in seminars and workshops at the January 2000 Econometric Society meetings in Boston; the European Central Bank; and the Federal Reserve Board. I am grateful to seminar participants for helpful comments.