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News shocks and business cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Per Krusell
  • Alisdair McKay

Abstract

This article considers the question, raised by Beaudry and Portier in their recent articles, of whether \\"news shocks\\" can lead to expansions and contractions that look like business cycle movements. News shocks are to be thought of solely as affecting expectations (regarding future events) and thus do not influence current resource restrictions at all. So the question is, for example, whether news about lower future productivity could lead our key aggregate variables?consumption, investment, and employment?to co-move down now. Beaudry and Portier make the point that standard neoclassical models clearly will not allow this outcome, and they, along with other researchers in follow-up work, suggest elaborations on the standard model that would. In the present research, we review this literature and propose a very simple model that does quite well in predicting co-movements in response to news shocks. The model is based on a departure from competitive labor markets: It uses a standard Diamond-Mortensen-Pissarides view that unemployment is determined as a function of search/matching frictions.

Suggested Citation

  • Per Krusell & Alisdair McKay, 2010. "News shocks and business cycles," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 96(4Q), pages 373-397.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedreq:y:2010:i:4q:p:373-397:n:v.96no.4
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Andreas Hornstein & Per Krusell & Giovanni L. Violante, 2005. "Unemployment and vacancy fluctuations in the matching model: inspecting the mechanism," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 91(Sum), pages 19-50.
    2. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2000. "Equilibrium Unemployment Theory, 2nd Edition," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262161877, December.
    3. Floden, Martin, 2006. "Vintage Capital and Expectations Driven Business Cycles," SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance 643, Stockholm School of Economics.
    4. Christopher A. Pissarides, 2009. "The Unemployment Volatility Puzzle: Is Wage Stickiness the Answer?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(5), pages 1339-1369, September.
    5. Pissarides, Christopher A, 1985. "Short-run Equilibrium Dynamics of Unemployment Vacancies, and Real Wages," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 75(4), pages 676-690, September.
    6. Beaudry, Paul & Portier, Franck, 2007. "When can changes in expectations cause business cycle fluctuations in neo-classical settings?," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 135(1), pages 458-477, July.
    7. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Thomas J. Sargent & Mark W. Watson, 2007. "ABCs (and Ds) of Understanding VARs," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 1021-1026, June.
    8. Walentin, Karl, 2014. "Expectation driven business cycles with limited enforcement," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 124(2), pages 300-303.
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    Cited by:

    1. Chao Gu & Han Han & Randall Wright, 2020. "The Effects Of News When Liquidity Matters," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 61(4), pages 1411-1435, November.
    2. Sandra Gomes, 2011. "Housing Market Dynamics: Any News?," Working Papers w201121, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    3. Abdalla, Ahmed & Carabias, Jose M., 2022. "From accounting to economics: the role of aggregate special items in gauging the state of the economy," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 108540, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Rabah Arezki & Valerie A. Ramey & Liugang Sheng, 2017. "News Shocks in Open Economies: Evidence from Giant Oil Discoveries," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 132(1), pages 103-155.
    5. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2014. "News-Driven Business Cycles: Insights and Challenges," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 52(4), pages 993-1074, December.
    6. Botezat, Alina, 2017. "Austerity plan announcements and the impact on the employees’ wellbeing," Journal of Economic Psychology, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 1-16.
    7. Philip Schnattinger, 2025. "Beliefs- and fundamentals-driven job creation," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 77(4), pages 1037-1061.
    8. Große Steffen, Christoph, 2015. "Uncertainty shocks and non-fundamental debt crises: An ambiguity approach," VfS Annual Conference 2015 (Muenster): Economic Development - Theory and Policy 112936, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.

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