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What Can Time-Series Regressions Tell Us About Policy Counterfactuals?

Author

Listed:
  • Christian K. Wolf
  • Alisdair McKay

Abstract

We show that, in a general family of linearized structural macroeconomic models, knowledge of the empirically estimable causal effects of contemporaneous and news shocks to the prevailing policy rule is sufficient to construct counterfactuals under alternative policy rules. If the researcher is willing to postulate a loss function, our results furthermore allow her to recover an optimal policy rule for that loss. Under our assumptions, the derived counterfactuals and optimal policies are robust to the Lucas critique. We then discuss strategies for applying these insights when only a limited amount of empirical causal evidence on policy shock transmission is available.

Suggested Citation

  • Christian K. Wolf & Alisdair McKay, 2022. "What Can Time-Series Regressions Tell Us About Policy Counterfactuals?," NBER Working Papers 30358, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:30358
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    Cited by:

    1. Hack, Lukas & Istrefi, Klodiana & Meier, Matthias, 2023. "Identification of Systematic Monetary Policy," CEPR Discussion Papers 17999, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    2. Ambrocio, Gene & Haavio, Markus & McClung, Nigel, 2024. "Monetary policy announcements and sacrifice ratios," Bank of Finland Research Discussion Papers 12/2024, Bank of Finland.
    3. Carrier, Alexandre & Mavromatis, Kostas, 2025. "Optimal normalization policy under behavioral expectations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 153(C).
    4. Jonas E. Arias & Minchul Shin, 2025. "Breaking Down the Latest Fight Against Inflation," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 10(2), pages 14-22, June.
    5. Georgiadis, Georgios & Müller, Gernot J. & Schumann, Ben, 2024. "Global risk and the dollar," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    6. Max Breitenlechner & Martin Geiger & Mathias Klein, 2024. "The Fiscal Channel of Monetary Policy," Working Papers 2024-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    7. Geert Mesters & Régis Barnichon, 2020. "A Sufficient Statistics Approach for Macro Policy Evaluation," Working Papers 1171, Barcelona School of Economics.
    8. Raimondo Pala, 2025. "Control VAR: a counterfactual based approach to inference in macroeconomics," Papers 2510.23762, arXiv.org.
    9. Christian K. Wolf, 2023. "Fiscal Stimulus and the Systematic Response of Monetary Policy," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 388-393, May.
    10. Tobias Broer & John V. Kramer & Kurt Mitman, 2025. "The Distributional Effects of Oil Shocks," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 73(3), pages 851-889, September.
    11. Hilde C. Bjornland & Jamie L. Cross & Jonas Holz, 2025. "Re-visiting the Relationship Between Oil Prices and Monetary Policy," CAMA Working Papers 2025-19, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    12. Régis Barnichon & Geert Mesters, 2023. "Evaluating policy institutions -150 years of US monetary policy-," Economics Working Papers 1873, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    13. Boeck, Maximilian & Mori, Lorenzo, 2025. "Has globalization changed the international transmission of U.S. monetary policy?," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 157(C).
    14. Wataru Miyamoto & Thuy Lan Nguyen & Dmitry Sergeyev, 2023. "How Oil Shocks Propagate: Evidence on the Monetary Policy Channel," Working Paper Series 2024-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    15. Eric T. Swanson, 2024. "The Macroeconomic Effects of the Federal Reserve’s Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policies," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(3), pages 1152-1184, September.
    16. Anastasiia Antonova & Mykhailo Matvieiev & Céline Poilly, 2024. "Supply Shocks in the Fog: The Role of Endogenous Uncertainty," AMSE Working Papers 2427, Aix-Marseille School of Economics, France.
    17. Gökhan Ider & Alexander Kriwoluzky & Frederik Kurcz & Ben Schumann, 2024. "Friend, Not Foe - Energy Prices and European Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2089, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    18. Bernardino Adão & Sandra Gomes & Laura Alpizar, 2025. "On how to assess the impact of monetary policy," Economic Bulletin and Financial Stability Report Articles and Banco de Portugal Economic Studies, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    19. Ho, Paul & Lubik, Thomas A. & Matthes, Christian, 2024. "Averaging impulse responses using prediction pools," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(C).
    20. Liyu Dou & Paul Ho & Thomas A. Lubik, 2023. "Max-Share Misidentification," Working Paper 25-02, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond.
    21. Burcu Eyigungor, 2025. "Understanding Job Growth," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 10(2), pages 1-6, June.
    22. Madeira, Carlos & Salazar, Leonardo, 2023. "The impact of monetary policy on a labor market with heterogeneous workers: The case of Chile," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 4(2).
    23. Coenen, Günter & Mazelis, Falk & Motto, Roberto & Ristiniemi, Annukka & Smets, Frank & Warne, Anders & Wouters, Raf, 2025. "Inflation and monetary policy in medium-sized New Keynesian DSGE models," Working Paper Series 3137, European Central Bank.
    24. Andrew Hertzberg, 2025. "Credit Scores and Rising Credit Card Delinquencies," Economic Insights, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia, vol. 10(2), pages 7-13, June.
    25. Endong Wang, 2024. "Structural counterfactual analysis in macroeconomics: theory and inference," Papers 2409.09577, arXiv.org.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

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