We decompose a 219 year sample of U.S. real output data into permanent and transitory shocks. We find reductions in volatility of output growth and inflation, starting in the mid 1980s, consistent with the “Great Moderation” noted by many others. More importantly, we find periods of even...

Annual changes in volatility of U.S. real output growth and inflation are documented in data from 1870 to 2009 using a time varying parameter VAR model. Both volatilities rise quickly with World War I and its aftermath, stay relatively high until the end of World War II and drop rapidly until...

Changes in volatility of output growth and inflation are examined for eight countries with at least 140 years of uninterrupted data. Time-varying parameter vector autoregressions are used to estimate standard deviations of each variable. Both volatilities rise quickly with World War I and its...

This paper studies Blanchard and Quah’s (1989) statistical model of permanent and transitory shocks to output using a set of arguably more plausible structural assumptions. Economists typically motivate this statistical model by assuming aggregate demand shocks have no long-run effect on the...

This paper structurally interprets empirical results obtained with Blanchard and Quah (1989) decompositions of output into permanent and transitory shocks. This is done using assumptions about the qualitative responses of variables to structural shocks that are consistent with many different...

We find that shocks with no immediate effect on the price level explain essentially all short-run variance of aggregate output while shocks that immediately affect price explain virtually none of that variance. Similar findings are obtained with aggregate, sectoral and industry-level data, both...