In this paper we discuss a number of challenges for structural macroeconomic models in the light of the Great Recession and its aftermath. It shows that a benchmark DSGE model that shares many features with models currently used by central banks and large international institutions has...

The Swedish economy is strongly dependent on global economic developments, which is re ected in generally strong empirical relationships between Swedish and foreign macroeconomic variables. It is, however, diffi cult for standard open-economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models...

This paper argues that assuming a common information set shared by the public and the central bank may be inappropriate when one is concerned with the value of information itself. Specifically, we argue that it may lead one to draw the conclusion that monetary policy do not benefit from accurate...

In this paper we investigate the problem of selecting an optimal horizon for inflation targeting in the United Kingdom. Since there are two key ways of thinking about an optimal horizon, we look at optimal horizons for both of these interpretations. In addition, to see whether our results are...

We show that a .scal expansion by the core economies of the euro area would have a large and positive impact on periphery GDP assuming that policy rates remain low for a prolonged period. Under our preferred model speci.cation, an expansion of core government spending equal to one percent of...

The 2008 financial crisis has shown that financial busts can influence the real economy. However, there is less evidence to suggest that the same holds for financial booms. Using a Markov-Switching vector autoregressive model and euro area data, I show that financial booms tend to be less...

We introduce time-varying systemic risk (à la He and Krishnamurthy, 2014) in an otherwise standard New-Keynesian model to study whether simple leaning-against-the-wind interest rate rules can reduce systemic risk and improve welfare. We find that while financial sector leverage contains...

This paper describes the official Riksbank forecasts for the period 2000-06. The forecast variables are those that are important for monetary policy analysis, i.e. inflation, GDP, productivity, employment, labour force, unemployment and financial variables such as interest rate and foreign...

When generating conditional forecasts in dynamic models it is common to impose the conditions as restrictions on future structural shocks. However, these conditional forecasts often ignore that there may be uncertainty about the future development of the restricted variables. Our paper therefore...

We evaluate forecasts made in real time to support monetary policy decisions at Sveriges Riksbank (the central bank of Sweden) from 2007 to 2013. We compare forecasts made with a DSGE model and a BVAR model with judgemental forecasts published by the Riksbank, and we evaluate the usefulness of...