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U.S. evolving macroeconomic dynamics - a structural investigation

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Author Info
Luca Benati () (European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany.)
Haroon Mumtaz () (Monetary Assessment and Strategy Division, Bank of England, Threadneedle Street, London, EC2R 8AH, United Kingdom.)

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Abstract

We fit a Bayesian time-varying parameters structural VAR with stochastic volatility to the Federal Funds rate, GDP deflator inflation, real GDP growth, and the rate of growth of M2. We identify 4 shocks–monetary policy, demand non-policy, supply, and money demand–by imposing sign restrictions on the estimated reduced-form VAR on a period-by-period basis. The evolution of the monetary rule in the structural VAR accords well with narrative accounts of post-WWII U.S. economic history, with (e.g.) significant increases in the long-run coefficients on inflation and money growth around the time of the Volcker disinflation. Overall, however, our evidence points towards a dominant role played by good luck in fostering the more stable macroeconomic environment of the last two decades. First, the Great Inflation was due, to a dominant extent, to large demand non-policy shocks, and to a lower extent to supply shocks. Second, imposing either Volcker or Greenspan over the entire sample period would only have had a limited impact on the Great Inflation episode, while imposing Burns and Miller would have resulted in a counterfactual inflation path remarkably close to the actual historical one. Although the systematic component of monetary policy clearly appears to have improved over the sample period, this does not appear to have been the dominant influence in post-WWII U.S. macroeconomic dynamics. JEL Classification: E32, E47, E52, E58.

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Paper provided by European Central Bank in its series Working Paper Series with number 746.

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Length: 47 pages
Date of creation: Apr 2007
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Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20070746

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Related research
Keywords: Bayesian VARs; stochastic volatility; identified VARs; time-varying parameters; frequency domain; Great Inflation; Lucas critique.;

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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. Benati, Luca, 2007. "Drift and breaks in labor productivity," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(8), pages 2847-2877, August. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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    Other versions:
  3. Sandrine Corvoisier & Benoît Mojon, 2005. "Breaks in the mean of inflation - how they happen and what to do with them," Working Paper Series 451, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  4. Gert Peersman, 2005. "What caused the early millennium slowdown? Evidence based on vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 185-207. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2006. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(1), pages 54-81, March. [Downloadable!]
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  7. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. John Geweke, 1991. "Evaluating the accuracy of sampling-based approaches to the calculation of posterior moments," Staff Report 148, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
  9. Barsky, Robert B., 1987. "The Fisher hypothesis and the forecastability and persistence of inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 3-24, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  11. Canova, Fabio & Nicolo, Gianni De, 2002. "Monetary disturbances matter for business fluctuations in the G-7," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1131-1159, September. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  12. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules And Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence And Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180, February. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  13. Jeremy Berkowitz & Francis X. Diebold, 1998. "Bootstrapping Multivariate Spectra," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(4), pages 664-666, November. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  15. Canova, Fabio & Gambetti, Luca & Pappa, Evi, 2006. "The Structural Dynamics of US Output and Inflation: What Explains the Changes?," CEPR Discussion Papers 5879, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  16. Luca Benati, 2007. "Drift and breaks in labor productivity," Working Paper Series 718, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  17. Luca Benati & Paolo Surico, 2008. "VAR analysis and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series 866, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  18. Nicoletta Batini & Edward Nelson, 2005. "The U.K.'s rocky road to stability," Working Papers 2005-020, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis. [Downloadable!]
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  19. Nelson, Edward & Nikolov, Kalin, 2004. "Monetary Policy and Stagflation in the UK," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 36(3), pages 293-318, June.
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  20. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 2003. "Computation and analysis of multiple structural change models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(1), pages 1-22. [Downloadable!]
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  21. Jon Faust, 1998. "The robustness of identified VAR conclusions about money," International Finance Discussion Papers 610, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.). [Downloadable!]
  22. Thomas A. Lubik & Frank Schorfheide, 2004. "Testing for Indeterminacy: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 190-217, March. [Downloadable!]
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  23. Jacquier, Eric & Polson, Nicholas G & Rossi, Peter E, 1994. "Bayesian Analysis of Stochastic Volatility Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(4), pages 371-89, October.
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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. Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Daniel F.Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2008. "Structural vector autoregressions: theory of identification and algorithms for inference," Working Paper 2008-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta. [Downloadable!]
  2. Luigi Landolfo, 2007. "Modeling the impact of external factors on the euro area’s HICP and real economy - a focus on pass-through and the trade balance," Working Paper Series 789, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  3. Jiri Podpiera, 2007. "Policy rate decisions and unbiased parameter estimation in typical monetary policy rules," Working Paper Series 771, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  4. Barbara Roffia & Andrea Zaghini, 2007. "Excess money growth and inflation dynamics," Working Paper Series 749, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  5. C. Baumeister & G. Peersman, 2008. "Time-Varying Effects of Oil Supply Shocks on the US Economy," Working Papers of Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Ghent University, Belgium 08/515, Ghent University, Faculty of Economics and Business Administration. [Downloadable!]
  6. Andrew Mountford & Harald Uhlig, 2008. "What are the Effects of Fiscal Policy Shocks?," NBER Working Papers 14551, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
    Other versions:
  7. Jukka Jalava & Ilja Kristian Kavonius, 2007. "Durable goods and their effect on household saving rations in the euro area," Working Paper Series 755, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  8. Philipp Engler & Michael Fidora & Christian Thimann, 2007. "External imbalances and the US current account - how supply-side changes affect an exchange rate adjustment," Working Paper Series 761, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  9. Jordi Galí & Luca Gambetti, 2006. "On the Sources of the Great Moderation," Economics Working Papers 1041, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jun 2007. [Downloadable!]
  10. Giovanni Lombardo & David Vestin, 2007. "Welfare implications of Calvo vs. Rotemberg pricing assumptions," Working Paper Series 770, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  11. Guido Wolswijk, 2007. "Short- and long-run tax elasticities - the case of the Netherlands," Working Paper Series 763, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
  12. Paul Levine & Joseph Pearlman & Richard Pierse, 2007. "Linear-quadratic approximation, external habit and targeting rules," Working Paper Series 759, European Central Bank. [Downloadable!]
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  13. Benoît Mojon, 2007. "Monetary policy, output composition and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series WP-07-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago. [Downloadable!]
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