This paper discusses estimation of US inflation volatility using time varying parameter models, in particular whether it should be modelled as a stationary or random walk stochastic process. Specifying inflation volatility as an unbounded process, as implied by the random walk, conflicts with...

This paper examines how and to what extent parameter estimates can be biased in a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model that omits the zero lower bound constraint on the nominal interest rate. Our experiments show that most of the parameter estimates in a standard sticky-price DSGE...

We examine the relation between US stock market returns and the US business cycle for the period 1960-2003 using a new methodology that allows us to estimate a time-varying equity premium. We identify two channels in the transmission mechanism. One is through the mean of stock returns via the...

This paper investigates asymmetric increasing trends in dependence in major international equity markets. To this end, we develop a multiple-regime smooth-transition copula GARCH model and address several important questions, including the number of regimes and the existence of increasing...

We argue in this paper that the Great Inflation of the 1970s can be understood as the result of equilibrium indeterminacy in which loose monetary policy engendered excess volatility in macroeconomic aggregates and prices. We show, however, that the Federal Reserve inadvertently pursued policies...

We highlight how detrending within Structural Vector Autoregressions (SVAR) is directly linked to the shock identification. Consequences of trend misspecification are investigated using a prototypical Real Business Cycle model as the Data Generating Process. Decomposing the different sources of...

We estimate a Factor Augmented Vector autoregression (FAVAR) to identify idiosyncratic exchange rate shocks and examine the effects of these shocks on different sectors of the economy. We find that an unexpected shock to the exchange rate has significant effects on the tradable sector of the...

This paper quantifies the relative contribution of domestic, regional and international factors to the fluctuation of domestic output in six key Latin American (LA) countries: Argentina, Bolivia, Brazil, Chile, Mexico and Peru. Using quarterly data over the period 1980:1-2003:4, a multi-variate,...

This paper presents evidence on why inflation pass-through from oil shocks in the 21st century relative to the 1970s has dampened. First, results suggest global business cycle demand driven oil shocks are not inflationary. Second, there has been a reduction in inflation pass-through from oil...

The deviance information criterion (DIC) has been widely used for Bayesian model comparison. However, recent studies have cautioned against the use of the DIC for comparing latent variable models. In particular, the DIC calculated using the conditional likelihood (obtained by conditioning on the...