This study examines the problem of forecasting an aggregate of cointegrated disaggregates. It first establishes conditions under which forecasts of an aggregate variable obtained from a disaggregate VECM will be equal to those from an aggregate, univariate time series model, and develops a...

Small-scale VARs have come to be widely used in macroeconomics, for purposes ranging from forecasting output, prices, and interest rates to modeling expectations formation in theoretical models. However, a body of recent work suggests such VAR models may be prone to instabilities. In the face of...

This paper explores the instability in estimated money demand functions. Using a new data series on credit card usage, we evaluate the role of financial innovations in stabilizing the M1 demand function over three troubling episodes. We find that our measure of financial innovations improves the...

This paper discusses a practical estimation issue for time-varying transition probability (TVTP) Markov switching models. Time-varying transition probabilities allow researchers to capture important economic behavior that may be missed using constant (or fixed) transition probabilities. Despite...

Forecasts by rational agents contain embedded initial and terminal boundary conditions. Standard time series models generate two types of long-run "endpoints"--fixed endpoints and moving average endpoints. Neither can explain the shifting endpoints implied by postwar movements in the...

This paper outlines a methodology to detrend multiple time series under common trend restrictions. The same filters used to construct the estimated trend in univariate exercises are shown to be appropriate in multivariate studies with a single common trend. However, to estimate the common trend...