Advanced Search
MyIDEAS: Login

Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand

Contents:

Author Info

  • Susanto Basu

    (Boston College, NBER)

  • Brent Bundick

    () (Boston College)

Abstract

Can increased uncertainty about the future cause a contraction in output and its components? This paper examines the role of uncertainty shocks in a one-sector, representative-agent dynamic stochastic general-equilibrium model. When prices are flexible, uncertainty shocks are not capable of producing business-cycle comovements among key macroeconomic variables. With countercyclical markups through sticky prices, however, uncertainty shocks can generate fluctuations that are consistent with business cycles. Monetary policy usually plays a key role in offsetting the negative impact of uncertainty shocks. If the central bank is constrained by the zero lower bound, then monetary policy can no longer perform its usual stabilizing function and higher uncertainty has even more negative effects on the economy. We calibrate the size of uncertainty shocks using fluctuations in the VIX and find that increased uncertainty about the future may indeed have played a significant role in worsening the Great Recession, which is consistent with statements by policymakers, economists, and the financial press.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. 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://fmwww.bc.edu/EC-P/wp774.pdf
File Function: main text
Download Restriction: no

Bibliographic Info

Paper provided by Boston College Department of Economics in its series Boston College Working Papers in Economics with number 774.

as in new window
Length:
Date of creation: 08 Sep 2011
Date of revision: 20 Sep 2012
Handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:774

Contact details of provider:
Postal: Boston College, 140 Commonwealth Avenue, Chestnut Hill MA 02467 USA
Phone: 617-552-3670
Fax: +1-617-552-2308
Email:
Web page: http://fmwww.bc.edu/EC/
More information through EDIRC

Related research

Keywords: Uncertainty Shocks; Monetary Policy; Sticky-Price Models;

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:

This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

References

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.:
as in new window
  1. Gauti B. Eggertsson, 2009. "What fiscal policy is effective at zero interest rates?," Staff Reports 402, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
  2. Alessandro Barattieri & Susanto Basu & Peter Gottschalk, 2010. "Some Evidence on the Importance of Sticky Wages," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 740, Boston College Department of Economics.
  3. Pablo A. Guerron-Quintana & Martin Uribe & Juan Rubio-Ramirez & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, 2009. "Risk Matters: The Real E¤ects of Volatility Shocks," 2009 Meeting Papers 237, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  4. François Gourio, 2009. "Disasters Risk and Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 15399, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  5. Eric Swanson & Gary Anderson & Andrew Levin, 2006. "Higher-order perturbation solutions to dynamic, discrete-time rational expectations models," Working Paper Series 2006-01, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

Blog mentions

As found by EconAcademics.org, the blog aggregator for Economics research:
  1. Uncertainty Shocks in a Model of Effective Demand
    by Christian Zimmermann in NEP-DGE blog on 2011-10-17 16:46:15
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as in new window

Cited by:
  1. Torben G. Andersen & Tim Bollerslev & Peter F. Christoffersen & Francis X. Diebold, 2011. "Financial Risk Measurement for Financial Risk Management," CREATES Research Papers 2011-37, School of Economics and Management, University of Aarhus.
  2. Mumtaz, Haroon & Theodoridis, Konstantinos, 2012. "The international transmission of volatility shocks: an empirical analysis," Bank of England working papers 463, Bank of England.
  3. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Pablo A. Guerrón-Quintana & Keith Kuester & Juan Rubio-Ramírez, 2011. "Fiscal Volatility Shocks and Economic Activity," NBER Working Papers 17317, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  4. Sofiane Aboura & Björn van Roye, 2013. "Financial stress and economic dynamics: an application to France," Kiel Working Papers 1834, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  5. Boysen-Hogrefe, Jens & Gern, Klaus-Jürgen & Jannsen, Nils & Plödt, Martin & van Roye, Björn & Scheide, Joachim & Groll, Dominik & Kooths, Stefan, 2012. "Weltkonjunktur und deutsche Konjunktur im Winter 2012," Kiel Discussion Papers 514/515, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
  6. Gust, Christopher & López-Salido, J David & Smith, Matthew E, 2012. "The Empirical Implications of the Interest-Rate Lower Bound," CEPR Discussion Papers 9214, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  7. Sylvain Leduc & Zheng Liu, 2012. "Uncertainty shocks are aggregate demand shocks," Working Paper Series 2012-10, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.

Lists

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Statistics

Access and download statistics

Corrections

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:boc:bocoec:774

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Christopher F Baum).

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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