We investigate the economic significance of trading off empirical validity of models against other desirable model properties, and the potential loss from ’overestimating’ model uncertainty and basing monetary policy on a relatively robust model, or on a suite of models. We find that differences in model specification and even differences in estimates of key parameters across comparable models may entail widely different monetary policy and macroeconomic performance. Our results therefore caution against compromising the empirical validity of models when selecting a model for policy analysis. We also find that potential costs from basing monetary policies on the relatively robust model or on a suite of models, even when it contains the valid model by assumption, can be quite substantial. This suggests huge gains from efficient exploitation of available information sources to avoid overestimation of model uncertainty. Our investigation is based on three alternative econometric systems of wage and price inflation for Norway
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Paper provided by Oslo University, Department of Economics in its series Memorandum with number
14/2007.
Find related papers by JEL classification: C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation and Testing E31 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Price Level; Inflation; Deflation E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
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[Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Gunnar Bårdsen & Eilev S. Jansen & Ragnar Nymoen, 1999.
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