IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Learning And The Great Moderation

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • James Bullard
  • Aarti Singh

Abstract

We study a stylized theory of the volatility reduction in the U.S. after 1984---the Great Moderation---which attributes part of the stabilization to less volatile shocks and another part to more difficult inference on the part of Bayesian households attempting to learn the latent state of the economy. We use a standard equilibrium business cycle model with technology following an unobserved regime-switching process. After 1984, according to Kim and Nelson (1999), the variance of U.S. macroeconomic aggregates declined because boom and recession regimes moved closer together, keeping conditional variance unchanged. In our model this makes the signal extraction problem more difficult for Bayesian households, and in response they moderate their behavior, reinforcing the effect of the less volatile stochastic technology and contributing an extra measure of moderation to the economy. We construct example economies in which this learning effect accounts for about 30 percent of a volatility reduction.

(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Download Info

To our knowledge, this item is not available for download. To find whether it is available, there are three options:
1. Check below under "Related research" whether another version of this item is available online.
2. Check on the provider's web page whether it is in fact available.
3. Perform a search for a similarly titled item that would be available.

Article provided by Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association in its journal International Economic Review.

Volume (Year): 53 (2012)
Issue (Month): 2 (05)
Pages: 375-397

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:53:y:2012:i:2:p:375-397
Contact details of provider: Postal:
160 McNeil Building, 3718 Locust Walk, Philadelphia, PA 19104-6297

Phone: (215) 898-8487
Fax: (215) 573-2057
Web page: http://www.econ.upenn.edu/ier
Email:


More information through EDIRC

Order Information: Web: http://www.blackwellpublishing.com/subs.asp?ref=0020-6598 Email:


Keywords:

Other versions of this item:

Find related papers by JEL classification:
  • D8 - Microeconomics - - Information, Knowledge, and Uncertainty
  • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

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. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez, 2007. "Estimating Macroeconomic Models: A Likelihood Approach," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 74(4), pages 1059-1087.
  2. Owyang, Michael T. & Piger, Jeremy & Wall, Howard J., 2008. "A state-level analysis of the Great Moderation," Regional Science and Urban Economics, Elsevier, vol. 38(6), pages 578-589, November.
  3. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
  4. David Andolfatto & Paul Gomme, 2003. "Monetary Policy Regimes and Beliefs," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(1), pages 1-30, February.
  5. Marco Cagetti & Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams, 2002. "Robustness and Pricing with Uncertain Growth," Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 15(2), pages 363-404, March.
  6. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters,in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230 National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  7. Alejandro Justiniano & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2008. "The Time-Varying Volatility of Macroeconomic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 98(3), pages 604-641, June.
  8. Andres Arias & Gary Hansen & Lee Ohanian, 2007. "Why have business cycle fluctuations become less volatile?," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 32(1), pages 43-58, July.
  9. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
  10. 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.
  11. Van Nieuwerburgh, Stijn & Veldkamp, Laura, 2006. "Learning asymmetries in real business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(4), pages 753-772, May.
  12. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
  13. Milani, Fabio, 2014. "Learning and time-varying macroeconomic volatility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 94-114.
  14. Aruoba, S. Boragan & Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus & Rubio-Ramirez, Juan F., 2006. "Comparing solution methods for dynamic equilibrium economies," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 2477-2508, December.
  15. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R & Piger, Jeremy, 2004. "The Less-Volatile U.S. Economy: A Bayesian Investigation of Timing, Breadth, and Potential Explanations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 80-93, January.
  16. Shaghil Ahmed & Andrew Levin & Beth Anne Wilson, 2004. "Recent U.S. Macroeconomic Stability: Good Policies, Good Practices, or Good Luck?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 824-832, August.
  17. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," Review of Economic Studies, Oxford University Press, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
  18. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, July.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.

as
in new window


Cited by:

  1. James B. Bullard, 2009. "Three funerals and a wedding," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Jan, pages 1-12.
  2. Piero Ferri, 2011. "Macroeconomics of Growth Cycles and Financial Instability," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 14260.
  3. Richard Harrison & George Kapetanios & Alasdair Scott & Jana Eklund, 2008. "Breaks in DSGE models," 2008 Meeting Papers 657, Society for Economic Dynamics.
  4. repec:zbw:rwirep:0509 is not listed on IDEAS
  5. Mathias Klein & Christopher Krause, 2014. "Income Redistribution, Consumer Credit,and Keeping up with the Riches," Ruhr Economic Papers 0509, Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-Universität Bochum, Universität Dortmund, Universität Duisburg-Essen.
  6. Murray, James, 2011. "Learning and judgment shocks in U.S. business cycles," MPRA Paper 29257, University Library of Munich, Germany.
  7. Suda, J., 2013. "Belief shocks and the macroeconomy," Working papers 434, Banque de France.
  8. Klein, Mathias & Krause, Christopher, 2014. "Income Redistribution, Consumer Credit,and Keeping up with the Riches," Ruhr Economic Papers 509, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
  9. Dan Tortorice, 2016. "The Business Cycles Implications of Fluctuating Long Run Expectations," Working Papers 100, Brandeis University, Department of Economics and International Businesss School.
  10. Luigi Bocola & Nils Gornemann, 2013. "Risk, economic growth and the value of U.S. corporations," Working Papers 13-10, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
  11. Klein, Mathias & Krause, Christopher, 2014. "Income Redistribution, Consumer Credit,and Keeping up with the Riches," Ruhr Economic Papers 509, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
  12. Milani, Fabio, 2014. "Learning and time-varying macroeconomic volatility," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 47(C), pages 94-114.
  13. James Bullard & Jacek Suda & Aarti Singh & Costas Azariadis, 2014. "Debt Overhang and Monetary Policy," 2014 Meeting Papers 948, Society for Economic Dynamics.

This item is featured on the following reading lists or Wikipedia pages:

  1. Canadian Macro Study Group

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:iecrev:v:53:y:2012:i:2:p:375-397. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Wiley-Blackwell Digital Licensing)

or ()

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.

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.