This file is part of IDEAS, which uses RePEc data


[ Papers | Articles | Software | Books | Chapters | Authors | Institutions | JEL Classification | NEP reports | Search | New papers by email | Author registration | Rankings | Volunteers | FAQ | Blog | Help! ]

Robust estimation and monetary policy with unobserved structural change

Author info | Abstract | Publisher info | Download info | Related research | Statistics
Author Info
John C. Williams

Additional information is available for the following registered author(s):

Abstract

This paper considers the joint problem of model estimation and implementation of monetary policy in the face of uncertainty regarding the process of structural change in the economy. I model unobserved structural change through time variation in the natural rates of interest and unemployment. I show that certainty equivalent optimal policies perform poorly when there is model uncertainty about the natural rate processes. I then examine the properties of combined estimation methods and policy rules that are robust to this type of model uncertainty. I find that weighted averages of sample means perform well as estimators of natural rates. The optimal policy under uncertainty responds more aggressively to inflation and less so to the perceived unemployment gap than the certainty equivalent policy. This robust estimation/policy combination is highly effective at mitigating the effects of natural rate mismeasurement.

Download Info
To download:

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. Information about this may be contained in the File-Format links below. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.frbsf.org/publications/economics/review/2006/er1-16.pdf
File Format: application/pdf
File Function:
Download Restriction: no

Publisher Info
Article provided by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in its journal Economic Review.

Volume (Year): (2006)
Issue (Month): ()
Pages: 1-16
Download reference. The following formats are available: HTML (with abstract), plain text (with abstract), BibTeX, RIS (EndNote, RefMan, ProCite), ReDIF
Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfer:y:2006:p:1-16

Contact details of provider:
Postal: P.O. Box 7702, San Francisco, CA 94120-7702
Phone: (415) 974-2000
Fax: (415) 974-3333
Email:
Web page: http://www.frbsf.org/
More information through EDIRC

Order Information:
Email:
Web: http://www.frbsf.org/popups/fiporder.html

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its listing, contact: (Diane Rosenberger).

Related research
Keywords: Monetary policy ; Econometric models ; Unemployment ; Inflation (Finance);

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. Alexei Onatski & Noah Williams, 2004. "Empirical and policy performance of a forward-looking monetary model," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar. [Downloadable!]
  2. Bennett T. McCallum, 2001. "Should Monetary Policy Respond Strongly to Output Gaps?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(2), pages 258-262, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  3. Athanasios Orphanides & Simon van Norden, 2001. "The Unreliability of Output Gap Estimates in Real Time," CIRANO Working Papers 2001s-57, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Laurence Ball & N. Gregory Mankiw, 2002. "The NAIRU in Theory and Practice," Harvard Institute of Economic Research Working Papers 1963, Harvard - Institute of Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. Levin, Andrew T. & Williams, John C., 2003. "Robust monetary policy with competing reference models," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 945-975, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  6. Mccallum, Bennet T., 1988. "Robustness properties of a rule for monetary policy," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 173-203, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Diebold, Francis X. & Rudebusch, Glenn D., 1989. "Long memory and persistence in aggregate output," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 24(2), pages 189-209, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  8. Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1989. "Forecasting output with the composite leading index: an ex ante analysis," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 90, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  9. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  10. Taylor, John B., 1999. "The robustness and efficiency of monetary policy rules as guidelines for interest rate setting by the European central bank," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 655-679, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  11. Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams & Tao Zha, 2006. "The Conquest of South American Inflation," NBER Working Papers 12606, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  12. John C. Williams, 2003. "Simple rules for monetary policy," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 1-12. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  13. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2003. "Imperfect Knowledge, Inflation Expectations, and Monetary Policy," NBER Working Papers 9884, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  14. A. Orphanides & J. Williams, 2003. "The decline of activist stabilization policy: natural rate misperceptions, learning, and expectations," Proceedings, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  15. Rochelle M. Edge & Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2004. "Learning and shifts in long-run productivity growth," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2004-04, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  16. Andrew Levin & Volker Wieland & John C. Williams, 2003. "The Performance of Forecast-Based Monetary Policy Rules under Model Uncertainty," CFS Working Paper Series 2003/06, Center for Financial Studies. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  17. Andrew Levin & Volker Wieland & John C. Williams, 1998. "Robustness of Simple Monetary Policy Rules under Model Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 6570, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  18. Robert J. Hodrick & Edward Prescott, 1981. "Post-War U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Discussion Papers 451, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  19. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  20. Thomas Laubach, 2001. "Measuring The NAIRU: Evidence From Seven Economies," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 218-231, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  21. Glenn D. Rudebusch & Lars E. O. Svensson, 1998. "Policy rules for inflation targeting," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    Other versions:
  22. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-84, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  23. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the business cycle changed?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 9-56. [Downloadable!]
  24. Robert J. Gordon, 1998. "Foundations of the Goldilocks Economy: Supply Shocks and the Time-Varying NAIRU," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 29(1998-2), pages 297-346. [Downloadable!]
  25. Douglas Laxton & Paolo Pesenti, 2003. "Monetary Rules for Small, Open, Emerging Economies," NBER Working Papers 9568, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  26. Frank Smets, 2002. "Output gap uncertainty: Does it matter for the Taylor rule?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 113-129. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  27. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  28. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2002. "Robust monetary policy rules with unknown natural rates," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2003-01, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  29. Kevin J. Lansing, 2000. "Learning about a shift in trend output: implications for monetary policy and inflation," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  30. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  31. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2001. "Shifting endpoints in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 613-652, June. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  32. Timothy Cogley & Thomas Sargent, . "Evolving Post-World War II U.S. Inflation Dynamics," Working Papers 2132872, Department of Economics, W. P. Carey School of Business, Arizona State University. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  33. Svensson, Lars E. O. & Woodford, Michael, 2003. "Indicator variables for optimal policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 691-720, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  34. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 1999. "The Band pass filter," Working Paper 9906, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
    • Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 1999. "The Band Pass Filter," NBER Working Papers 7257, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    • Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, 05. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  35. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2003. "Drifts and volatilities: monetary policies and outcomes in the post WWII U.S," Working Paper 2003-25, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  36. Athanasios Orphanides, 2002. "Monetary-Policy Rules and the Great Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 115-120, May. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  37. Orphanides, Athanasios & Porter, Richard D. & Reifschneider, David & Tetlow, Robert & Finan, Frederico, 2000. "Errors in the measurement of the output gap and the design of monetary policy," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 52(1-2), pages 117-141. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  38. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2001. "Is The Fed Too Timid? Monetary Policy In An Uncertain World," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 203-217, May. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  39. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2003. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," NBER Working Papers 9459, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  40. Douglas Staiger & James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1996. "How Precise are Estimates of the Natural Rate of Unemployment?," NBER Working Papers 5477, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  41. Arturo Estrella & Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2003. "Monetary Policy Shifts and the Stability of Monetary Policy Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(1), pages 94-104, 01. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  42. Thomas Laubach & John C. Williams, 2003. "Measuring the Natural Rate of Interest," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(4), pages 1063-1070, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  43. Marc P. Giannoni & Michael Woodford, 2003. "Optimal Inflation Targeting Rules," NBER Working Papers 9939, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  44. Eric T. Swanson, 2000. "On signal extraction and non-certainty-equivalence in optimal monetary policy rules," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2000-32, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  45. Glenn D. Rudebusch, 2002. "Assessing Nominal Income Rules for Monetary Policy with Model and Data Uncertainty," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 112(479), pages 402-432, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  46. Alexei Onatski & Noah Williams, 2003. "Modeling Model Uncertainty," NBER Working Papers 9566, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  47. Granger, C. W. J., 1980. "Long memory relationships and the aggregation of dynamic models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 227-238, October. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  48. J.H. Kalchbrenner & P.A. Tinsley, 1976. "On the use of optimal control in the design of monetary policy," Special Studies Papers 76, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
Full references

Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Orphanides, Athanasios & Williams, John C, 2006. "Inflation Targeting under Imperfect Knowledge," CEPR Discussion Papers 5664, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  2. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2005. "Monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Working Papers in Applied Economic Theory 2005-17, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Athanasios Orphanides & John C. Williams, 2007. "Robust monetary policy with imperfect knowledge," Working Paper Series 2007-08, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  4. Richard A. Ashley & Randall J. Verbrugge., 2006. "Mis-Specification in Phillips Curve Regressions: Quantifying Frequency Dependence in This Relationship While Allowing for Feedback," Working Papers e06-11, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Richard A. Ashley. & Randall J. Verbrugge., 2006. "Mis-Specification and Frequency Dependence in a New Keynesian Phillips Curve," Working Papers e06-12, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  6. Livio Stracca, 2006. "A speed limit monetary policy rule for the euro area," Working Paper Series 600, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
Statistics
Access and download statistics

Did you know? IDEAS indexes over 800000 items of research in Economics alone.

This page was last updated on 2009-11-10.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Department of Economics, College of Liberal Arts and Sciences, University of Connecticut using RePEc data on a server sponsored by the Society for Economic Dynamics.