Much recent business cycle research focuses on moments of macroeconomic aggregates. We construct examples of real business cycle sample paths for output, consumption, and employment for the U.S. economy. Annual sample paths are generated from an initial condition in 1925, measured technology and...

This paper studies whether fiscal policy satisfies a borrowing constraint. Direct tests of the present-value constraint are rare, despite widespread discussion of the feasibility of current policy. We examine monthly data on Canadian federal government finances using tests for cointegration. We...

This paper studies the time series behaviour of aggregate consumption and asset returns when the representative agent does not (necessarily) maximize the expected value of a von Neumann-Morgenstern utility index. By assuming that agent's intertemporal preferences over stochastic consumption...

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This paper investigates infinite horizon intertemporal utility functions which generalize the standard additive expected utility specification. Two classes of generalization are considered -- the first builds upon Kreps and Porteus (1978, 1979), while the second is a further generalization which...

This paper investigates the testable restrictions on the time-series behaviour of consumption and asset returns implied by the consumption/portfolio choice problem of an infinitely-lived, representative agent. Intertemporal preferences are characterized by utility functions that generalize...

Empirical rejections of life cycle models of aggregate consumption are reviewed and an alternative specification is proposed. Observable implication of Euler equations are used to estimate parameters of the utility function using Generalized Method of Moments using monthly U.S. post-war data....

Many international macroeconomic models link the real exchange rate to a ratio of marginal utilities. We examine this link empirically, allowing the marginal utility of consumption to depend on government expenditure, real money balances, or external habit. We also consider two environments with...

Economists often describe nominal exchange rates as forward-looking, so that they reflect discounted, expected, future fundamentals. This study applies a method for identifying the discount rate involved, without knowing or measuring fundamentals. Identification arises from assumptions on the...

Euro-interest rates are well-known to be persistent, as are their differentials across countries for a given maturity. The international CCAPM implies that the rates are persistent because forecasts of national consumption growth or inflation are persistent too. We examine this prediction for a...