This paper compares macroeconomic performance in the United States from 1891 through 1914 with the period after the Second World War by estimating reduced form autoregressions for prices, wages and output, by looking at their moving average representations, and by giving them simple structural interpretations. The results show that the impulses to the economic system were smaller in the later period, but the propagation mechanisms are much slower and more drawn out. The smaller shocks are therefore translated into larger and more prolonged fluctuations in output and inflation than would occur if the earlier dynamics were applicable in the later period. A tentative explanation for the changes in the dynamics is a slower speed of wage and price adjustment combined with a different accommodative stance for the monetary system.
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Paper provided by National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc in its series NBER Working Papers with number
1491.
Length: Date of creation: Mar 1988 Date of revision: Publication status: published relationship to a non-chapter. This should not happen. Please contact NBER. Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:1491
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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.:
Sims, Christopher A, 1980.
"Macroeconomics and Reality,"
Econometrica,
Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
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