what accounts for the changes in u s fiscal policy transmission using vector autoregressions on u s time series for 1957 79 and 1983 2004 we find government spending shocks to have stronger effects on output consumption and wages in the earlier period we try to account for this observation within a dsge model featuring price rigidities and limited asset market participation specifically we estimate the structural parameters of the model for both periods by matching impulse responses model based counterfactual experiments suggest that most of the changes in fiscal policy transmission are accounted for by increased asset market participation and the more active monetary policy of the volcker greenspan period

how forward looking is optimal monetary policy we calculate optimal monetary policy rules for several variants of a simple optimizing model of the monetary transmission mechanism with sticky prices and or wages we show that robustly optimal rules can be represented by interest rate feedback rules that generalize the celebrated proposal of taylor 1993 optimal rules however require that the current interest rate operating target depend positively on the recent past level of the operating target and its recent rate of increase in a way that is characteristic of estimated central bank reaction functions but not of taylor s proposal we furthermore find that a robustly optimal policy rule is almost inevitably an implicit rule that requires the central bank to use a structural model to project the economy s evolution under the contemplated policy action however calibrated examples suggest that optimal rules place less weight on projections of inflation or output many quarters in the future than do rules often discussed in the literature on inflation targeting or in the current practice of inflation forecast targeting central banks

why does private consumption rise after a government spending shock recent empirical evidence suggests that private consumption is crowded in by government spending this outcome violates existing macroeconomic theory according to which the negative wealth effect brought about by a rise in public expenditure should decrease consumption

estimated general equilibrium models for the evaluation of monetary policy in the us and europe a persistent criticism of general equilibrium models of monetary policy which incorporate nominal inertia in the form of the new keynesian phillips curve nkpc is that they fail to capture the extent of inflation inertia in the data in this paper we derive a general equilibrium model based on optimising behaviour but which also implies a data consistent nkpc specifically our model accounts for nominal inertia in both price and wage setting as well for habits in consumption using us and european data from 1970 to 1998 our parameter estimates reveal that i there is relatively more inertia in price setting in europe ii wage contracts last longer in the us iii the extent of backward looking behaviour in price and wage setting is statistically significant but small in both the us and europe and iv significant habits effects are present in european consumption finally we simulate the effects of monetary policy and find that while the magnitude of the impact of monetary policy on the endogenous variables in our estimated models are similar to other econometric studies the dynamic paths for variables display less inertia than is typically found in studies which use output gaps to proxy changes in marginal costs

how well does sticky information explain the dynamics of inflation output and real wages abstract this paper finds that a model with sticky information is less successful than a standard model featuring nominal rigidities inflation indexation and habits in generating the dynamics triggered by technology shocks as estimated by a vector autoregression using u s macroeconomic data the real wage responses after a permanent increase in productivity clearly favor the standard model the sticky information model fails to replicate the observed inertial response in the real wage whereas the standard model relies on inflation indexation in wage setting to achieve a better fit the two models are however statistically equivalent after a shock in monetary policy

constructing and estimating a realistic optimizing model of monetary policy abstract a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge model with real and nominal both price and wage rigidities succeeds in capturing some key nominal features of u s business cycles additive technology shocks as well as multiplicative shocks are introduced and shown to be crucial monetary policy is specified as an interest rate targeting rule following developments in the structural vector autoregression var literature the interaction between real and nominal rigidities is essential to reproduce the liquidity effect of monetary policy the model is estimated by maximum likelihood on u s data and its fit is comparable to that of an unrestricted first order var besides producing reasonable impulse responses and second moments this model replicates a feature of u s business cycles never captured by previous research with dsge models that an increase in interest rates predicts a decrease in output two to six quarters in the future

inflation persistence and robust monetary policy design this paper examines the performance of optimised interest rate rules when there is uncertainty about a key determinant of the monetary transmission mechanism namely the degree of persistence characterising the inflation process the paper focuses on the euro area and utilises two variants of an estimated small scale macroeconomic model featuring distinct types of staggered contracts specifications which induce quite different degrees of inflation persistence the paper shows that a cautious monetary policy maker is well advised to design and implement interest rate policies under the assumption that inflation persistence is high when there is considerable uncertainty about the prevailing degree of inflation persistence such policies are characterised by a relatively aggressive response to inflation developments and exhibit a substantial degree of inertia

optimal monetary policy in economies with dual labor markets abstract we present a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium dsge new keynesian model with indivisible labor and a dual labor market a walrasian one where wages are fully flexible and a unionized one characterized by real wage rigidity we show that the negative effect of a productivity shock on inflation and the positive effect of a cost push shock are crucially determined by the proportion of firms that belong to the unionized sector the larger this number the larger are these effects consequently the larger the union coverage the larger should be the optimal response of the nominal interest rate to exogenous productivity and cost push shocks the optimal inflation and output gap volatility increases as the number of the unionized firms in the economy increases

inflation target shocks and monetary policy inertia in the euro area the euro area as a whole has experienced a marked downward trend in inflation over the past decades and concomitantly a protracted period of depressed activity can permanent and gradual shifts in monetary policy be held responsible for these dynamics to answer this question we embed serially correlated changes in the inflation target into a dsge model with real and nominal frictions the formal bayesian estimation of the model suggests that gradual changes in the inflation target have played a major role in the euro area business cycle counter factual exercises show that had monetary policy implemented its new inflation objective at a faster rate the euro zone would have experienced more sustained growth than it actually did

inflation targeting what inflation rate to target abstract in an economy with nominal rigidities in both an intermediate good sector and a finished good sector and thus with a natural distinction between cpi and ppi inflation rates a benevolent central bank faces a tradeoff between stabilizing the two measures of inflation a final output gap and unique to our model a real marginal cost gap in the intermediate sector so that optimal monetary policy is second best we discuss how to implement the optimal policy with minimal information requirement and evaluate the robustness of these simple rules when the central bank may not know the exact sources of shocks or nominal rigidities a main finding is that a simple hybrid rule under which the short term interest rate responds to cpi inflation and ppi inflation results in a welfare level close to the optimum whereas policy rules that ignore ppi inflation or ppi sector shocks can result in significant welfare losses

a new keynesian model with staggered price and wage setting under learning abstract this paper provides a study of the implications for economic dynamics when the central bank sets its nominal interest rate target in response to variations in wage inflation i provide results on the existence uniqueness and stability under learning of rational expectations equilibrium for alternative specifications of the manner in which monetary policy responds to economic shocks when nominal rigidities are present monopolistically competitive producers set prices via staggered price contracts and households set nominal wages in the same fashion in this setting the conditions for determinacy and learnability of rational expectations equilibrium differ from a model where only prices are sticky i find that when the central bank responds to wage and price inflation and to the output gap a taylor principle for wage and price inflation arises that is related to stability under learning dynamics in other words a moderate reaction of the interest rate to wage inflation helps to avoid instability under learning and indeterminacy

fleshing out the monetary transmission mechanism output composition and the role of financial frictions financial frictions affect the way in which different macroeconomic series respond to a monetary policy shock we embed the financial accelerator of bernanke gertler and gilchrist 1999 into a medium scale dsge model and evaluate the relative importance of financial frictions in explaining monetary transmission specifically we apply minimum distance estimation based on impulse responses for the volcker greenspan period apart from providing estimates for structural parameters our procedure lends itself for specification tests that can be used to assess the relative fit of various restricted models financial frictions turn out to be of lesser importance for the descriptive success of our model

disinflation shocks in the eurozone a dsge perspective we investigate the effects of disinflation policies on key macroeconomic variables using euro area data and structural vector autoregressions svars we identify disinflation shocks as the only shocks that drive nominal variables to a lower long run level we find that in the immediate aftermath of a disinflation shock the euro area enters in a persistent recession we use these dynamic responses to estimate a dsge model with imperfect information about the disinflation shock we find that both nominal and real frictions and monetary policy gradualism have played a prominent role in the recessionary effect of disinflation shocks conversely allowing for imperfect credibility does not yield a better fit except when we shut key model s frictions down

how well does the is lm model fit postwar u s data postwar u s time series for money interest rates prices and gnp are characterized by a multivariate process driven by four exogenous disturbances those disturbances are identified so that they can be interpreted as the four main sources of fluctuations found in the is lm phillips curve model money supply money demand is and aggregate supply shocks the dynamic properties of the estimated model are analyzed and shown to match most of the stylized predictions of the model the estimated decomposition is also used to measure the relative importance of each shock to interpret some macroeconomic episodes and to study sources of permanent shocks to nominal variables

sticky price and limited participation models of money a comparison abstract we provide new evidence that models of the monetary transmission mechanism should be consistent with at least the following facts after a contractionary monetary policy shock the aggregate price level responds very little aggregate output falls interest rates initially rise real wages decline by a modest amount and profits fall we compare the ability of sticky price and limited participation models with frictionless labor markets to account for these facts the key failing of the sticky price model lies in its counterfactual implications for profits the limited participation model can account for all the above facts but only if one is willing to assume a high labor supply elasticity 2 percent and a high markup 40 percent the shortcomings of both models reflect the absence of labor market frictions such as wage contracts or factor hoarding which dampen movements in the marginal cost of production after a monetary policy shock 1997 elsevier science b v

asset market participation monetary policy rules and the great inflation this paper argues that limited asset market participation is crucial in explaining u s macroeconomic performance and monetary policy before the 1980s and their changes thereafter in an otherwise conventional sticky price model standard aggregate demand logic is inverted at low enough asset market participation interest rate increases become expansionary passive monetary policy ensures equilibrium determinacy and maximizes welfare this suggests that federal reserve policy in the pre volcker era was better than conventional wisdom implies we provide empirical evidence consistent with this hypothesis and study the relative merits of changes in structure and shocks for reproducing the conquest of the great inflation and the great moderation

technology shocks and monetary policy revisiting the fed s performance would the u s economy s dynamic response to permanent technology shocks have been different from the actual responses if monetary authorities systematic response to these shocks had been optimal to answer this question we characterize the dynamic effects of permanent technology shocks and the way in which u s monetary authorities reacted to these shocks over the sample 1955 1 2002 4 using a structural var a sticky price sticky wage model is developed and estimated to reproduce these responses we then formally compare these responses with the outcome of the optimal monetary policy

unemployment insurance in a sticky price model with worker moral hazard abstract this paper studies the role of unemployment insurance in a sticky price model that features an efficiency wage view of the labor market based on unobservable effort the risk sharing mechanism central to the model permits but does not force agents to be fully insured structural parameters are estimated using a maximum likelihood procedure on us data formal hypothesis tests reveal that the data favor a model in which agents only partially insure each other against employment risk the results also show that limited risk sharing helps the model capture many salient properties of the business cycle that a restricted version with full insurance fails to explain

estimation and control of an optimization based model with sticky prices and wages abstract this paper provides estimates of an optimization based equilibrium model with sticky prices and wages the estimated model is used to analyse the welfare properties of various interest rate rules for conducting monetary policy an important feature of this model is that it involves a tradeoff between the variances of price and wage inflation and the output gap this tradeoff implies that it is desirable for the monetary authority to respond to wage inflation in addition to price inflation output and past interest rates when setting the current interest rate the issue whether wages and prices can be indexed to steady state inflation has important implications both for the characterization of optimal interest rate rules and interest rate volatility in particular optimal policy in the presence of indexation induces implausibly high steady state inflation

has monetary policy become more effective we investigate the implications of changes in the structure of the u s economy for monetary policy effectiveness estimating a vector autoregression over the pre and post 1980 periods we provide evidence of a reduced effect of monetary policy shocks in the latter period we estimate a structural model that replicates well the economy s response in both periods and perform counterfactual experiments to determine the source of the change in the monetary transmission mechanism and in the economy s volatility we find that by responding more strongly to inflation expectations monetary policy has stabilized the economy more effectively in the post 1980 period

financial sector weakness and the m2 velocity puzzle i introduction there has been a long running debate over the usefulness of monetary aggregates as intermediate targets or information variables in the conduct of monetary policy in the mid1970s the missing money episode associated with m1 money demand was documented by goldfeld 1976 and judd and scadding 1982 passage of the depository institutions deregulation and monetary control act in 1980 and the garn st germain act in 1982 ushered in a period of financial deregulation including interest bearing checking accounts and money market deposit accounts these innovations affected depositor behavior to such an extent as to make m1 unreliable as a target or indicator of policy as a result research efforts focused on m2 demand with initial evidence of stable short run specifications for this aggregate as in small and porter 1989 this issue remains timely with the recent example of the european central bank debating whether to target a monetary aggregate or inflation in its implementation of monetary policy as svensson 1999 points out in the united states feldstein and stock 1994 argue that the federal reserve should use the m2 monetary aggregate as an intermediate target on the other hand a fair amount of work suggests that m2 is not reliable as either a target or an indicator of monetary policy friedman and kuttner 1992 show that by the early 1990s the relationship between m2 and gross domestic producct gdp had weakened and estrella and mishkin s 1997 work provides further support for this finding miyao 1996 presents evidence that a cointegrating m2 demand relationship broke down in the 1990s as the link between m2 and gdp deteriorated the forecasting ability of m2 money demand equations also suffered the difficulties in forecasting m2 spurred a number of publications examining whether the deterioration in the m2 equation s forecasting ability was temporary or whether more fundamental factors such as flaws in the construction of the m2 aggregate the opportunity cost or both were at work carlson and parrott 1991 and duca 1992 first argued that the existence of troubled thrifts and the length of time it took the resolution trust corporation to resolve the thrifts difficulties helped explain the weakness in m2 in particular duca found that the change in the volume of cumulated deposits at resolved thrift institutions accounted for a large part of the m2 weakness although he suggested his findings be viewed cautiously because of the short time period of the analysis in the same article as well as in one subsequent to it duca 1995 also examined whether some of the weakness in m2 reflected substitution by households away from m2 type deposits and into bond and equity mutual funds he found that adding a bond fund series to m2 reduced estimated m2 growth shortfalls orphanides et al 1994 carlson and keen 1996 feldstein and stock 1996 and mehra 1997 also present evidence that the unusual behavior of m2 was related to growth in stock and bond mutual funds koenig 1996a 1996b focused on the competitiveness problems of financial intermediaries in the face of tighter regulations and stricter capital standards he proposed an alternative strategy for empirically modeling m2 by altering the opportunity cost measure to include a long term treasury bond rate this addition substantially improved forecasts of m2 until 1995 when large prediction errors once again appear feinman and porter 1992 and mehra 1997 also attempted to explain recent m2 instability through alternative measures of the opportunity cost rather than refine the opportunity cost or redefine the m2 monetary aggregate carlson et al 2000b present consistent evidence of a cointegrating relationship through the 1990s between real m2 various scale measures and an opportunity cost measure this result is obtained after adjusting for periods of financial restructuring in the early 1990s characterized by a sharp increase in bond and equity funds and a steep decline in small time deposits

unemployment as excess supply of labor implications for wage and price inflation abstract the introduction of both market clearing wages and nominal rigidities on wage setting can be used to rationalize unemployment as excess supply of labor in the new keynesian model as a result wage inflation dynamics are forward looking and depend negatively on the rate of unemployment moreover both price inflation and wage inflation evolve as indicated by equations equivalent to those obtained in erceg et al 2000 though with different slope coefficients in an equal volatility comparison the model with unemployment conveys less price stickiness and more wage stickiness

robust optimal policy in a forward looking model with parameter and shock uncertainty this paper characterizes a robust optimal policy rule in a simple forward looking model when the policymaker faces uncertainty about model parameters and shock processes we show that the robust optimal policy rule is likely to involve a stronger response of the interest rate to fluctuations in inflation and the output gap than is the case in the absence of uncertainty thus parameter uncertainty alone does not necessarily justify a small response of monetary policy to perturbations however uncertainty may amplify the degree of super inertia required by optimal monetary policy we finally discuss the sensitivity of the results to alternative assumptions copyright 2007 john wiley sons ltd

inflation dynamics marginal cost and the output gap evidence from three countries recent studies have argued that the new keynesian phillips curve calvo pricing model is empirically valid provided that real marginal cost rather than detrended output is used as the variable driving inflation one interpretation of this result is that real marginal cost is not closely related to the output gap and so models for monetary policy need to include labormarket rigidities an alternative interpretation is that marginal cost and the output gap are closely related but that the latter needs to be measured in a manner consistent with dynamic general equilibrium models to date there has been little econometric investigation of this alternative interpretation this paper provides estimates of the new keynesian phillips curve for the u s the u k and australia using theory consistent estimates of the output gap using this theory to measure the output gap leads to a considerable improvement in the empirical performance of output gapbased phillips curves

staggered price setting staggered wage setting and business cycle persistence abstract staggered price setting and staggered wage setting are commonly viewed as similar mechanisms in generating persistent real effects of monetary shocks in this paper we distinguish the two mechanisms in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium framework we show that although the dynamic price setting and wage setting equations are alike a key parameter governing persistence is linked to the underlying preferences and technologies in different ways with reasonable parameter values the staggered price mechanism by itself is incapable of while the staggered wage mechanism plays an important role in generating persistence

a stochastic framework for short term operation of a distribution company this paper presents a stochastic framework for short term operation of a distribution company disco the proposed framework optimizes disco s operational decisions in two hierarchical stages the first stage called day ahead operation stage daos deals with the operational decisions on purchases from the day ahead market and commitment of distributed generation dg units the objective of this stage is to minimize the expected operating cost while the financial risk exposed by uncertain real time prices and loads is restricted to a given level the model associated with this stage is based on the mixed integer programming mip format the second stage named real time operation stage rtos deals with disco s activities in real time in rtos decisions are made on real time market transactions dispatch of online dgs and invocation of load curtailments lcs such that the expected operating cost is minimized this stage is formulated as a nonlinear programming nlp problem to investigate the effectiveness of the developed framework it is applied to a typical finnish 20 kv urban distribution network

does trade integration alter monetary policy transmission abstract this paper explores the role of trade integration or openness for monetary policy transmission in a medium scale new keynesian model allowing for strategic complementarities in price setting we highlight a new dimension of the exchange rate channel by which monetary policy directly impacts domestic inflation a monetary contraction which appreciates the exchange rate lowers the local currency price of imported goods this in turn induces domestic producers to lower their prices too we pin down key parameters of the model by matching impulse responses obtained from a vector autoregression on time series for the us relative to the euro area our estimation procedure yields plausible parameter values and suggests a strong role for strategic complementarities counterfactual simulations show that openness alters monetary transmission significantly while the contractionary effect of a monetary policy shock on inflation and output tends to increase in openness we find that monetary policy s control over inflation increases as the output decline which is necessary to bring about a given reduction of inflation is smaller in more open economies

on the informational role of term structure in the us monetary policy rule abstract this paper uses a structural approach based on the indirect inference principle to estimate a standard version of the new keynesian monetary nkm model augmented with term structure using both revised and real time data the estimation results show that the term spread and policy inertia are both important determinants of the us estimated monetary policy rule whereas the persistence of shocks plays a small but significant role when revised and real time data of output and inflation are both considered more importantly the relative importance of term spread and persistent shocks in the policy rule and the shock transmission mechanism drastically change when it is taken into account that real time data are not well behaved