[go: up one dir, main page]
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ecb/ecbwps/2008866.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

VAR analysis and the Great Moderation

Author

Listed:
  • Benati, Luca
  • Surico, Paolo
Abstract
Most analyses of the U.S. Great Moderation have been based on structural VAR methods, and have consistently pointed towards good luck as the main explanation for the greater macroeconomic stability of recent years. Based on an estimated New-Keynesian model in which the only source of change is the move from passive to active monetary policy, we show that VARs may misinterpret good policy for good luck. First, the policy shift is suficient to generate decreases in the theoretical innovation variances for all series, and decreases in the variances of inflation and the output gap, without any need of sunspot shocks. With sunspots, the estimated model exhibits decreases in both variances and innovation variances for all series. Second, policy counterfactuals based on the theoretical structural VAR representations of the model under the two regimes fail to capture the truth, whereas impulse-response functions to a monetary policy shock exhibit little change across regimes. Since these results are in line with those found in the structural VARbased literature on the Great Moderation, our analysis suggests that existing VAR evidence is compatible with the 'good policy' explanation of the Great Moderation. JEL Classification: E3, E52

Suggested Citation

  • Benati, Luca & Surico, Paolo, 2008. "VAR analysis and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series 866, European Central Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2008866
    Note: 802546
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ecb.europa.eu//pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp866.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    2. Leeper, Eric M., 1991. "Equilibria under 'active' and 'passive' monetary and fiscal policies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 27(1), pages 129-147, February.
    3. Lubik, Thomas A. & Schorfheide, Frank, 2003. "Computing sunspot equilibria in linear rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 273-285, November.
    4. Luca Benati, 2008. "Investigating Inflation Persistence Across Monetary Regimes," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 123(3), pages 1005-1060.
    5. Fabio Canova & Joaquim Pires Pina, 2005. "What VAR Tell us about DSGE Models?," Springer Books, in: Claude Diebolt & Catherine Kyrtsou (ed.), New Trends in Macroeconomics, pages 89-123, Springer.
    6. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    7. Sungbae An & Frank Schorfheide, 2007. "Bayesian Analysis of DSGE Models," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2-4), pages 113-172.
    8. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Generalizing the Taylor Principle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 607-635, June.
    9. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Fabio Canova & Luca Gambetti, 2010. "Do Expectations Matter? The Great Moderation Revisited," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 183-205, July.
    11. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    12. Luca Gambetti & Evi Pappa & Fabio Canova, 2008. "The Structural Dynamics of U.S. Output and Inflation: What Explains the Changes?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 369-388, March.
    13. Sims, Christopher A, 2002. "Solving Linear Rational Expectations Models," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 20(1-2), pages 1-20, October.
    14. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March.
    15. Goffe, William L. & Ferrier, Gary D. & Rogers, John, 1994. "Global optimization of statistical functions with simulated annealing," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 65-99.
    16. Benoit Mojon, 2007. "Monetary policy, output composition and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series WP-07-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    17. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 445-462, August.
    18. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    19. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    20. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chen, Xiaoshan & Kirsanova, Tatiana & Leith, Campbell, 2017. "How optimal is US monetary policy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 92(C), pages 96-111.
    2. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2008. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 604-641, June.
    3. Thomas A. Lubik & Paolo Surico, 2010. "The Lucas critique and the stability of empirical models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 177-194, January.
    4. Benati, Luca & Surico, Paolo, 2007. "Vector Autoregression Analysis and the Great Moderation," Discussion Papers 18, Monetary Policy Committee Unit, Bank of England.
    5. Giovanni Nicolo, 2020. "Monetary Policy, Self-Fulfilling Expectations and the U.S. Business Cycle," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2020-035, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    6. Castelnuovo, Efrem, 2010. "Trend inflation and macroeconomic volatilities in the post-WWII U.S. economy," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 19-33, March.
    7. Lhuissier, Stéphane & Zabelina, Margarita, 2015. "On the stability of Calvo-style price-setting behavior," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 77-95.
    8. Hofmann, Boris & Peersman, Gert & Straub, Roland, 2012. "Time variation in U.S. wage dynamics," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 59(8), pages 769-783.
    9. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez, 2008. "How Structural Are Structural Parameters?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 83-137, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Carboni, Giacomo, 2014. "Term premia implications of macroeconomic regime changes," Working Paper Series 1694, European Central Bank.
    11. Grydaki, Maria & Bezemer, Dirk, 2013. "The role of credit in the Great Moderation: A multivariate GARCH approach," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 37(11), pages 4615-4626.
    12. Xiaoshan Chen & Ronald Macdonald, 2012. "Realized and Optimal Monetary Policy Rules in an Estimated Markov‐Switching DSGE Model of the United Kingdom," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 44(6), pages 1091-1116, September.
    13. Emanuele Bacchiocchi & Efrem Castelnuovo & Luca Fanelli, 2014. "Gimme a break! Identification and estimation of the macroeconomic effects of monetary policy shocks in the U.S," "Marco Fanno" Working Papers 0181, Dipartimento di Scienze Economiche "Marco Fanno".
    14. Fabio Canova & Luca Gambetti, 2010. "Do Expectations Matter? The Great Moderation Revisited," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 2(3), pages 183-205, July.
    15. Consolo, Agostino & Favero, Carlo A. & Paccagnini, Alessia, 2009. "On the statistical identification of DSGE models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 150(1), pages 99-115, May.
    16. Ana Beatriz Galvão & Liudas Giraitis & George Kapetanios & Katerina Petrova, 2015. "A Bayesian Local Likelihood Method for Modelling Parameter Time Variation in DSGE Models," Working Papers 770, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    17. Luca Benati & Paolo Surico, 2006. "The Great Moderation and the ‘Bernanke Conjecture’," Computing in Economics and Finance 2006 158, Society for Computational Economics.
    18. Carlo A. Favero, 2009. "The Econometrics of Monetary Policy: An Overview," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Terence C. Mills & Kerry Patterson (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Econometrics, chapter 16, pages 821-850, Palgrave Macmillan.
    19. Patrick Minford & Zhirong Ou & Michael Wickens, 2015. "Revisiting the Great Moderation: Policy or Luck?," Open Economies Review, Springer, vol. 26(2), pages 197-223, April.
    20. Xin Wei, 2020. "Dynamic Expectations Formation and U.S. Monetary Policy Regime Change," CAEPR Working Papers 2020-007, Center for Applied Economics and Policy Research, Department of Economics, Indiana University Bloomington.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    DSGE models; great moderation; indeterminacy; vector autoregressions.;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • E13 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Neoclassical
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • N12 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - U.S.; Canada: 1913-

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:2008866. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Official Publications (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/emieude.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.