With Monte Carlo experiments on models in widespread use we examine the performance of indirect inference (II) tests of DSGE models in small samples. We compare these tests with ones based on direct inference (using the Likelihood Ratio, LR). We find that both tests have power so that a...

Indirect Inference has been found to have much greater power than the Likelihood Ratio in small samples for testing DSGE models. We look at asymptotic and large sample properties of these tests to understand why this might be the case. We find that the power of the LR test is undermined when...

Using Monte Carlo experiments, we examine the performance of Indirect Inference tests of DSGE models, usually versions of the Smets-Wouters New Keynesian model of the US postwar period. We compare these with tests based on direct inference (using the Likelihood Ratio), and on the Del...

We extend the method of indirect inference testing to data that is not filtered and so may be non-stationary. We apply the method to an open economy real business cycle model on UK data. We review the method using a Monte Carlo experiment and find that it performs accurately and has good power....

This paper addresses the growing gulf between traditional macroeconometrics and the increasingly dominant preference among macroeconomists to use DSGE models and to estimate them using Bayesian estimation with strong priors but not to test them as they are likely to fail conventional statistical...

Indirect inference testing can be carried out with a variety of auxiliary models. Asymptotically these different models make no difference. However, the small sample properties can differ. We explore small sample power and estimation bias both with different variable combinations and descriptive...

We review recent findings in the application of Indirect Inference to DSGE models. We show that researchers should tailor the power of their test to the model under investigation in order to achieve a balance between high power and model tractability; this will involve choosing only a limited...

We use the method of indirect inference to test a full open economy model of the UK that has been in forecasting use for three decades. The test establishes, using a Wald statistic, whether the parameters of a time-series representation estimated on the actual data lie within some confidence...

Maximum Likelihood (ML) shows both lower power and higher bias in small sample Monte Carlo experiments than Indirect Inference (II) and IIís higher power comes from its use of the model-restricted distribution of the auxiliary model coeffi cients (Le et al. 2016). We show here that IIís higher...

Macroeconomic researchers use a variety of estimators to parameterise their models empirically. One such is FIML; another is a form of indirect inference we term "informal" under which data features are "targeted" by the model -i.e. parameters are chosen so that model-simulated features...