IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedfel/y2005isep16n2005-24.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Why has output become less volatile?

Author

Listed:
  • Bharat Trehan

Abstract

Over the past twenty years, output growth in the U.S. has become noticeably less volatile. During that time, the economy has experienced two recessions, compared with four in each of the two preceding twenty year periods. Further, the loss in output during the last two recessions has been smaller than what prior experience would lead one to expect. Moreover, the reduction in output volatility is not confined to business cycle frequencies. ; Does the reduction in volatility represent some kind of fundamental, structural change in the economy? Or is it the result of good policy? Or is it the result of good luck? These are the questions that economists are debating in the research literature. Several different arguments have been put forward, but as yet there is no agreement on the cause or causes for the reduced volatility. This Economic Letter reviews and discusses these arguments.

Suggested Citation

  • Bharat Trehan, 2005. "Why has output become less volatile?," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue sep16.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2005:i:sep16:n:2005-24
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2005/el2005-24.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/letter/2005/el2005-24.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Dynan, Karen E. & Elmendorf, Douglas W. & Sichel, Daniel E., 2006. "Can financial innovation help to explain the reduced volatility of economic activity?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(1), pages 123-150, January.
    2. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Tao Wu, 2007. "Accounting for a Shift in Term Structure Behavior with No-Arbitrage and Macro-Finance Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(2-3), pages 395-422, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mr. Christopher Carroll & Mr. Martin Sommer & Mr. Jiri Slacalek, 2012. "Dissecting Saving Dynamics: Measuring Wealth, Precautionary, and Credit Effects," IMF Working Papers 2012/219, International Monetary Fund.
    2. Goodness C. Aye & Stephen M. Miller & Rangan Gupta & Mehmet Balcilar, 2016. "Forecasting US real private residential fixed investment using a large number of predictors," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 51(4), pages 1557-1580, December.
    3. Urban J. Jermann & Vincenzo Quadrini, 2006. "Financial innovations and macroeconomic volatility," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Nov.
    4. Mikkel Hermansen & Oliver Röhn, 2017. "Economic resilience: The usefulness of early warning indicators in OECD countries," OECD Journal: Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2016(1), pages 9-35.
    5. Steven J. Davis & James A. Kahn, 2008. "Interpreting the Great Moderation: Changes in the Volatility of Economic Activity at the Macro and Micro Levels," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 22(4), pages 155-180, Fall.
    6. Nyakabawo, Wendy & Miller, Stephen M. & Balcilar, Mehmet & Das, Sonali & Gupta, Rangan, 2015. "Temporal causality between house prices and output in the US: A bootstrap rolling-window approach," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 33(C), pages 55-73.
    7. John V. Duca & Tao Wu, 2009. "Regulation and the Neo-Wicksellian Approach to Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 41(4), pages 799-807, June.
    8. Barbedo, Claudio H.S. & de Melo, Eduardo F.L., 2012. "Joint dynamics of Brazilian interest rate yields and macro variables under a no-arbitrage restriction," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 64(5), pages 364-376.
    9. Anna Florio, 2016. "The central bank as shaper and observer of events: The case of the yield spread," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 49(1), pages 320-346, February.
    10. Owyang, Michael T. & Piger, Jeremy & Wall, Howard J., 2008. "A state-level analysis of the Great Moderation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 578-589, November.
    11. Nicholas Apergis & Ghassen El Montasser & Emmanuel Owusu-Sekyere & Ahdi N. Ajmi & Rangan Gupta, 2014. "Dutch Disease Effect of Oil Rents on Agriculture Value Added in MENA Countries," Working Papers 201408, University of Pretoria, Department of Economics.
    12. Catte, Pietro & Cova, Pietro & Pagano, Patrizio & Visco, Ignazio, 2011. "The role of macroeconomic policies in the global crisis," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 33(6), pages 787-803.
    13. Robert J Gordon, 2005. "What Caused the Decline in US Business Cycle Volatility?," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: Christopher Kent & David Norman (ed.),The Changing Nature of the Business Cycle, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    14. Eric Swanson, 2015. "A Macroeconomic Model of Equities and Real, Nominal, and Defaultable Debt," 2015 Meeting Papers 273, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    15. Bianchi, Francesco & Mumtaz, Haroon & Surico, Paolo, 2009. "Dynamics of the term structure of UK interest rates," Bank of England working papers 363, Bank of England.
    16. Chun, Hyunbae & Kim, Jung-Wook, 2010. "Declining output growth volatility: A sectoral decomposition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 106(3), pages 151-153, March.
    17. Wouter J. Den Haan & Vincent Sterk, 2011. "The Myth of Financial Innovation and the Great Moderation," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 121(553), pages 707-739, June.
    18. Yu-chin Chen & Kwok Ping Tsang, 2013. "What Does the Yield Curve Tell Us about Exchange Rate Predictability?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 95(1), pages 185-205, March.
    19. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Tao Wu, 2008. "A Macro‐Finance Model of the Term Structure, Monetary Policy and the Economy," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 118(530), pages 906-926, July.
    20. Jens H. E. Christensen & Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2009. "An arbitrage-free generalized Nelson--Siegel term structure model," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 12(3), pages 33-64, November.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:fip:fedfel:y:2005:i:sep16:n:2005-24. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco Research Library (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbsfus.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.