This paper develops a new and easily implementable necessary and sufficient condition for the exact identification of a Markov-switching structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. The theorem applies to models with both linear and some nonlinear restrictions on the structural parameters. We...

In 1994 the FOMC began to release statements after each meeting. This paper investigates whether the public’s views about the current path of the economy and of future policy have been affected by changes in the Federal Reserve’s communications policy as reflected in private sector’s...

There prevails a view that the monetary policy in the Euro area has changed, especially after the European Monetary System (EMS) came into operation in 1979. The goal of this paper is to quantify (1) the extent to which policy regime has changed and (2) the counterfactual effects of such regimes...

This paper addresses two substantive issues: (1) Does the magnitude of the expectation effect of regime switching in monetary policy depend on a particular policy regime? (2) Under which regime is the expectation effect quantitatively important? Using two canonical DSGE models, we show that...

This paper proposes a methodology for assessing the joint performance of multivariate forecasts of economic variables. The methodology is illustrated by comparing the rankings of forecasters by the Wall Street Journal with the authors’ alternative rankings. The results show that the...

This paper develops a new and easily implementable necessary and sufficient condition for the exact identification of a Markov-switching SVAR model. The theorem applies to models with both linear and some nonlinear restrictions on the structural parameters. We also derive efficient MCMC...

The literature on the zero lower bound has grown rapidly since Eggertsson and Woodford (2003). But estimation of the effects of practical monetary policy at the zero lower bound (ZLB) remains a daunting task. In this paper, we propose a new approach to estimating a log-linearized DSGE model with...

The inference for hidden Markov chain models in which the structure is a multiple-equation macroeconomic model raises a number of difficulties that are not as likely to appear in smaller models. One is likely to want to allow for many states in the Markov chain without allowing the number of...

We study the sources of the Great Moderation by estimating a variety of medium-scale DSGE models that incorporate regime switches in shock variances and in the inflation target. The best-fit model, the one with two regimes in shock variances, gives quantitatively different dynamics in comparison...

When impulse responses in dynamic multivariate models such as identified VARs are given economic interpretations, it is important that reliable statistical inferences be provided. Before probability assessments are provided, however, the model must be normalized. Contrary to the conventional...