Models used for policy analysis should generate reliable unconditional forecasts as well as policy simulations (conditional forecasts) that are based on a structural model of the economy. Vector autoregression (VAR) models have been criticized for having inaccurate forecasts as well as being...

We explore two popular approaches to empirical analysis of monetary policy: the New Keynesian and the identified vector autoregression approaches. Stylized models of private behavior coupled with simple rules describing policy behavior characterize New Keynesian work. Vector autoregressions...

Recent research has questioned the usefulness of Vector Autoregression (VAR) models as a description of monetary policy, especially in light of the low correlation between forecast errors from VARs and those derived from Fed funds futures rates. This paper presents three findings on VARs'...

DYNAMICS OF INFLATIONARY PROCESSES IN MALAWI: AN ECONOMETRIC ANALYSIS* Kisu Simwaka Research & Statistics Department Reserve Bank of Malawi The paper investigates the sources of inflationary pressures in Malawi and suggests ways of mitigating such pressures. In the first part of the study, we...

This paper attempts to empirically test the hypothesis that whether debt matters in the EU. This has been performed by examining the potential adverse effects of debt in large European economies on investment, inflation and growth. Using the hybrid cointegration and vector autoregressive models,...

The paper considers the use of directed acyclic graphs (DAGs), and their construction from observational data with PC-algorithm TETRAD II, in providing over-identifying restrictions on the innovations from a vector autoregression. Results from Sims’ 1986 model of the US economy are replicated...

The high degree of economic integration has led to an increased degree of currency substitution in the EU countries, which could bring instability in national money demand functions while an EU-wide money demand function could be more stable. Currency substitution usually takes the form of cross...

Structural VARs have been extensively used in empirical macroeconomics during the last two decades, particularly in analyses of monetary policy. Existing Bayesian procedures for structural VARs are at best confined to a severly limited handling of cointegration restrictions. This paper extends...