Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) models use modern macroeconomic theory to explain and predict comovements of aggregate time series over the business cycle and to perform policy analysis. We explain how to use DSGE models for all three purposes – forecasting, story-telling, and...

We estimate a DSGE model where rare large shocks can occur, but replace the commonly used Gaussian assumption with a Student's t-distribution. Results from the Smets and Wouters (2007) model estimated on the usual set of macroeconomic time series over the 1964-2011 period indicate that 1) the...

The business cycle is alive and well, and real variables respond to it more or less as they always did. Witness the Great Recession. In ation, in contrast, has gone quiescent. This paper studies the sources of this disconnect using VARs and an estimated DSGE model. It finds that the disconnect...