In most existing DSGE models, parameters are supposed constant and exogenous shocks have zero mean. This makes difficult to treat structural change and anticipated effects of future reforms. Introducing dummy variables in the DSGE model can only handle unexpected changes. This papers deals with...

This essay reviews progress in empirical economics since Leamer's (1983) critique. Leamer highlighted the benefits of sensitivity analysis, a procedure in which researchers show how their results change with changes in specification or functional form. Sensitivity analysis has had a salutary but...

We present a multivariate generalization of the simple markov-switching model. We allow for the introduction of several latent processes that have a simple parametric distribution. The matrix-variate bernoulli distribution yields a flexible yet parsimonious pattern of dependence between the...

This paper proposes a new empirical representation of US inflation expectations in a Stace-Space Markov-Switching framework in order to identify the expectations regimes which are associated with short and long term Phillips curves. We explicitly identify the dynamic of inflation expectation...

Unrestricted reduced form vector autoregressive (VAR) models have become a dominant research strategy in empirical macroeconomics since Sims (1980) critique of traditional macroeconometric modeling. They are however subjected to the curse of dimensionality. In this paper we propose...

The common approach to evaluating a model in the structural VAR literature is to compare the impulse responses from structural VARs run on the data to the theoretical impulse responses from the model. The Sims-Cogley-Nason approach instead compares the structural VARs run on the data to...

For univariate time series we suggest a new variant of efficient score tests against fractional alternatives. This test has three important merits. First, by means of simulations we observe that it is superior in terms of size and power in some situations of practical interest. Second, it is...

The central finding of the recent structural vector autoregression (SVAR) literature with a differenced specification of hours is that technology shocks lead to a fall in hours. Researchers have used this finding to argue that real business cycle models are unpromising. We subject this SVAR...

In this paper we use a Dynamic Factor model to retrieve vulnerability indicators able to predict financial turmoil. A stochastic simulation experiment is then used to produce the corresponding probability forecasts regarding the currency crisis events a®ecting a number of East Asian countries...