IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/chb/bcchwp/782.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Sentiment Shocks as Drivers of Business Cycles

Author

Listed:
  • Agustín Arias

Abstract

This paper studies the role of sentiment shocks as a source of business cycle fluctuations. Considering a standard New Keynesian model of the business cycle, it introduces agents that update beliefs about the parameters of their forecasting models using newly observed data and exogenous sentiment shocks. The resulting learning model fits U.S. data better than its non-sentiment version and than its rational expectations counterpart. Sentiment is found to be an important driver of economic fluctuations, accounting for up to half of the forecast error variance of aggregate variables at business cycle frequencies. Furthermore, sentiment displays a common pattern for real GDP, investment and consumption growth, where a significant part of the sluggish recovery following a recession can be attributed to the persistent pessimistic views of agents. Sentiment also explains a substantial fraction of the high inflation experienced during the 70’s and early 80’s.

Suggested Citation

  • Agustín Arias, 2016. "Sentiment Shocks as Drivers of Business Cycles," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 782, Central Bank of Chile.
  • Handle: RePEc:chb:bcchwp:782
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.bcentral.cl/documents/33528/133326/DTBC_782.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2004. "Comparing shocks and frictions in US and euro area business cycles: a Bayesian DSGE approach," Working Paper Research 61, National Bank of Belgium.
    2. Slobodyan, Sergey & Wouters, Raf, 2012. "Learning in an estimated medium-scale DSGE model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 26-46.
    3. Mehra, Rajnish & Prescott, Edward C., 1985. "The equity premium: A puzzle," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 15(2), pages 145-161, March.
    4. N. Gregory Mankiw & Ricardo Reis & Justin Wolfers, 2004. "Disagreement about Inflation Expectations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2003, Volume 18, pages 209-270, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Thomas J. Sargent, 1973. "Rational Expectations, the Real Rate of Interest, and the Natural Rate of Unemployment," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(2), pages 429-480.
    6. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    7. Lucas, Robert Jr., 1972. "Expectations and the neutrality of money," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 4(2), pages 103-124, April.
    8. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2006. "Stock Prices, News, and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1293-1307, September.
    9. Milani, Fabio, 2007. "Expectations, learning and macroeconomic persistence," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(7), pages 2065-2082, October.
    10. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    11. George A. Akerlof, 2009. "How Human Psychology Drives the Economy and Why It Matters," American Journal of Agricultural Economics, Agricultural and Applied Economics Association, vol. 91(5), pages 1175-1175.
    12. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2005. "Comparing shocks and frictions in US and euro area business cycles: a Bayesian DSGE Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 161-183.
    13. Milani, Fabio, 2017. "Sentiment and the U.S. business cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 289-311.
    14. John Geweke, 1999. "Using Simulation Methods for Bayesian Econometric Models," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 832, Society for Computational Economics.
    15. Fabio Milani, 2012. "The Modeling of Expectations in Empirical DSGE Models: A Survey," Advances in Econometrics, in: DSGE Models in Macroeconomics: Estimation, Evaluation, and New Developments, pages 3-38, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    16. Cogley, Timothy & Sargent, Thomas J., 2008. "The market price of risk and the equity premium: A legacy of the Great Depression?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(3), pages 454-476, April.
    17. John Geweke, 1999. "Using simulation methods for bayesian econometric models: inference, development,and communication," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 1-73.
    18. Del Negro, Marco & Schorfheide, Frank & Smets, Frank & Wouters, Rafael, 2007. "On the Fit of New Keynesian Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 123-143, April.
    19. Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams & Tao Zha, 2006. "Shocks and Government Beliefs: The Rise and Fall of American Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1193-1224, September.
    20. Sergey Slobodyan & Raf Wouters, 2012. "Learning in a Medium-Scale DSGE Model with Expectations Based on Small Forecasting Models," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 4(2), pages 65-101, April.
    21. Fernandez-Villaverde, Jesus & Francisco Rubio-Ramirez, Juan, 2004. "Comparing dynamic equilibrium models to data: a Bayesian approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 123(1), pages 153-187, November.
    22. Branch, William A., 2007. "Sticky information and model uncertainty in survey data on inflation expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 245-276, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Miura, Shogo, 2023. "Households’ assets, sentiment shocks and business cycles," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 118(C).

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Paccagnini, Alessia, 2017. "Dealing with Misspecification in DSGE Models: A Survey," MPRA Paper 82914, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Slobodyan, Sergey & Wouters, Raf, 2012. "Learning in an estimated medium-scale DSGE model," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 36(1), pages 26-46.
    3. Milani, Fabio, 2017. "Sentiment and the U.S. business cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 82(C), pages 289-311.
    4. Hürtgen, Patrick, 2014. "Consumer misperceptions, uncertain fundamentals, and the business cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 40(C), pages 279-292.
    5. Marco Di Pietro & Enrico Saltari, 2018. "Economic Fluctuations in the U.S. and Euro Area: Quantifying the Contribution of Technical Change," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 85(1), pages 203-216, July.
    6. Raf Wouters & Sergey Slobodyan, 2009. "Estimating a medium–scale DSGE model with expectations based on small forecasting models," 2009 Meeting Papers 654, Society for Economic Dynamics.
    7. Ricardo Marto, 2014. "Assessing the Impacts of Non-Ricardian Households in an Estimated New Keynesian DSGE Model," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 150(IV), pages 353-398, December.
    8. Rychalovska, Yuliya, 2016. "The implications of financial frictions and imperfect knowledge in the estimated DSGE model of the U.S. economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 73(C), pages 259-282.
    9. Adolfson, Malin & Laseen, Stefan & Linde, Jesper & Villani, Mattias, 2007. "Bayesian estimation of an open economy DSGE model with incomplete pass-through," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 72(2), pages 481-511, July.
    10. Jang, Tae-Seok & Sacht, Stephen, 2021. "Forecast heuristics, consumer expectations, and New-Keynesian macroeconomics: A Horse race," Journal of Economic Behavior & Organization, Elsevier, vol. 182(C), pages 493-511.
    11. Drissi, Ramzi & Ghassan, Hassan B., 2018. "Sticky Price versus Sticky Information Price: Empirical Evidence in the New Keynesian Setting," MPRA Paper 93075, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Apr 2019.
    12. Marc P. Giannoni & Jean Boivin, 2005. "DSGE Models in a Data-Rich Environment," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 431, Society for Computational Economics.
    13. De Grauwe, Paul & Gerba, Eddie, 2018. "The role of cognitive limitations and heterogeneous expectations for aggregate production and credit cycle," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 206-236.
    14. Philip Arestis & Georgios Chortareas & John D. Tsoukalas, 2010. "Money and Information in a New Neoclassical Synthesis Framework," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 120(542), pages 101-128, February.
    15. Homburg, Stefan, 2017. "A Study in Monetary Macroeconomics," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198807537, Decembrie.
    16. Lewis, Vivien & Villa, Stefania & Wolters, Maik H., 2019. "Labor productivity, effort and the euro area business cycle," Discussion Papers 44/2019, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    17. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde, 2010. "The econometrics of DSGE models," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 1(1), pages 3-49, March.
    18. Fabio Milani, 2012. "The Modeling of Expectations in Empirical DSGE Models: A Survey," Advances in Econometrics, in: DSGE Models in Macroeconomics: Estimation, Evaluation, and New Developments, pages 3-38, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    19. Andrea Ajello, 2016. "Financial Intermediation, Investment Dynamics, and Business Cycle Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 106(8), pages 2256-2303, August.
    20. Giovanni Di Bartolomeo & Marco Di Pietro, 2017. "Intrinsic Persistence of Wage Inflation in New Keynesian Models of the Business Cycles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 49(6), pages 1161-1195, September.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:chb:bcchwp:782. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    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 CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc 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 RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Alvaro Castillo (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/bccgvcl.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.