The Great Recession and the subsequent period of subdued GDP growth in most advanced economies have highlighted the need for macroeconomic forecasters to account for sudden and deep recessions, periods of higher macroeconomic volatility, and fluctuations in trend GDP growth. In this paper, we...

In a simple New Keynesian model, we derive a closed form solution for the inflation-gap persistence parameter as a function of the policy weights in the central bank’s Taylor rule. By estimating the time-varying weights that the FED attaches to inflation and the output gap, we show that the...

We apply the asymmetric ARDL model advanced by Shin, Yu and Greenwood-Nimmo (2009) to the analysis of the patterns of pass-through from policy-controlled interest rates to a variety of longer-term rates in the U.S. and Germany. Our results reveal three main phenomena. Firstly, while the effect...

In a simple New Keynesian model, we derive a closed form solution for the inflation persistence parameter as a function of the policy weights in the central bank’s Taylor rule. By estimating the time-varying weights that the FED attaches to inflation and the output gap, we show that the...

This paper first documents the increase in the time lag with which labor input reacts to output fluctuations (the labor adjustment lag) that is visible in US data since the mid-1980s. We show that a lagged labor adjustment response is optimal in a setting where there is uncertainty about the...

We study the implications of a stockout constraint in a dynamic general equilibrium model, which can explain both RBC and inventory facts well. Under the stockout constraint, inventories and demand are complements in generating sales, and hence the optimal level of inventories increases in...

This paper proposes a theory of the fiscal foundations of inflation based on imperfect knowledge and learning. The theory is similar in spirit to, but distinct from, unpleasant monetarist arithmetic and the fiscal theory of the price level. Because the assumption of imperfect knowledge breaks...

This paper provides insights into the time-varying dynamics of the German business cycle over the last five decades. To do so, I employ an open-economy time-varying parameter VAR with stochastic volatility, which I estimate by quasi-Bayesian techniques. The reduced-form analysis reveals...

It is commonplace to link neoclassical economics to 18th- or 19th-century physics and its notion of equilibrium, of a pendulum once disturbed eventually coming to rest. Likewise, an economy subjected to an exogenous shock seeks equilibrium through the stabilizing market forces unleashed by the...