IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/7087.html

Role of the Minimal State Variable Criterion

Author

Listed:
  • Bennett T. McCallum

Abstract

This paper concerns the minimal-state-variable (MSV) criterion for selection among solutions in rational expectations (RE) models that feature a multiplicity of paths that satisfy all of the model's conditions. It compares the MSV criterion with others that have been proposed, including the widely used saddle-path (or dynamic stability) criterion. It is emphasized that the MSV criterion can be viewed as a classification scheme that delineates the unique solution that is free of bubble or sunspot components. This scheme is of scientific value as it (a) yields a single solution upon which a researcher can focus attention if desired and (b) provides the basis for a substantive hypothesis that actual market outcomes are generally of a bubble-free nature. In the process of demonstrating uniqueness of the MSV solution for a broad class of linear models, the paper exposits a convenient and practical computational procedure. Also, several applications to current issues regarding monetary policy are outlined.

Suggested Citation

  • Bennett T. McCallum, 2000. "Role of the Minimal State Variable Criterion," NBER Working Papers 7087, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:7087
    Note: ME EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w7087.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. King, Robert G & Watson, Mark W, 1998. "The Solution of Singular Linear Difference Systems under Rational Expectations," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 1015-1026, November.
    2. Evans, George W., 1989. "The fragility of sunspots and bubbles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 297-317, March.
    3. Marcet, Albert & Sargent, Thomas J., 1989. "Convergence of least squares learning mechanisms in self-referential linear stochastic models," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 48(2), pages 337-368, August.
    4. Svensson, Lars E. O., 1999. "Inflation targeting as a monetary policy rule," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 43(3), pages 607-654, June.
    5. Brock, William A., 1975. "A simple perfect foresight monetary model," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 1(2), pages 133-150, April.
    6. Sims, Christopher A, 1994. "A Simple Model for Study of the Determination of the Price Level and the Interaction of Monetary and Fiscal Policy," Economic Theory, Springer;Society for the Advancement of Economic Theory (SAET), vol. 4(3), pages 381-399.
    7. McCallum, Bennett T., 1998. "Solutions to linear rational expectations models: a compact exposition," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 61(2), pages 143-147, November.
    8. Obstfeld, Maurice & Rogoff, Kenneth, 1983. "Speculative Hyperinflations in Maximizing Models: Can We Rule Them Out?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 91(4), pages 675-687, August.
    9. McCallum, Bennett T & Nelson, Edward, 1999. "An Optimizing IS-LM Specification for Monetary Policy and Business Cycle Analysis," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 296-316, August.
    10. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Kahn, Charles M, 1980. "The Solution of Linear Difference Models under Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(5), pages 1305-1311, July.
    11. Rotemberg, Julio J, 1982. "Sticky Prices in the United States," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 90(6), pages 1187-1211, December.
    12. Ben S. Bernanke & Michael Woodford, 1997. "Inflation forecasts and monetary policy," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland, pages 653-686.
    13. George Evans, 1985. "Expectational Stability and the Multiple Equilibria Problem in Linear Rational Expectations Models," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 100(4), pages 1217-1233.
    14. Gray, Jo Anna, 1984. "Dynamic Instability in Rational Expectations Models: An Attempt to Clarify," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 25(1), pages 93-122, February.
    15. Calvo, Guillermo A., 1978. "On the indeterminacy of interest rates and wages with perfect foresight," Journal of Economic Theory, Elsevier, vol. 19(2), pages 321-337, December.
    16. William Kerr & Robert G. King, 1996. "Limits on interest rate rules in the IS model," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, issue Spr, pages 47-75.
    17. McCallum, Bennett T., 1983. "On non-uniqueness in rational expectations models : An attempt at perspective," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 11(2), pages 139-168.
    18. Flood, Robert P & Garber, Peter M, 1980. "An Economic Theory of Monetary Reform," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 88(1), pages 24-58, February.
    19. Froot, Kenneth A & Obstfeld, Maurice, 1991. "Intrinsic Bubbles: The Case of Stock Prices," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 81(5), pages 1189-1214, December.
    20. Binder, Michael & Pesaran, M. Hashem, 1997. "Multivariate Linear Rational Expectations Models," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(6), pages 877-888, December.
    21. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1, January.
    22. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    23. Binder,M. & Pesaran,H.M., 1995. "Multivariate Rational Expectations Models and Macroeconomic Modelling: A Review and Some New Results," Cambridge Working Papers in Economics 9415, Faculty of Economics, University of Cambridge.
    24. Evans, George W & Honkapohja, Seppo, 1992. "On the Robustness of Bubbles in Linear RE Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 33(1), pages 1-14, February.
    25. Taylor, John B, 1977. "Conditions for Unique Solutions in Stochastic Macroeconomic Models with Rational Expectations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 45(6), pages 1377-1385, September.
    26. Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S., 1995. "A toolkit for analyzing nonlinear dynamic stochastic models easily," Discussion Paper 1995-97, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    27. Burmeister, Edwin & Flood, Robert P. & Garber, Peter M., 1983. "On the equivalence of solutions in rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 5(1), pages 311-321, February.
    28. Fuhrer, Jeffrey C., 2010. "Inflation Persistence," Handbook of Monetary Economics, in: Benjamin M. Friedman & Michael Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Monetary Economics, edition 1, volume 3, chapter 9, pages 423-486, Elsevier.
    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. Florin O. Bilbiie & Andr… Meier & Gernot J. M‹Ller, 2008. "What Accounts for the Changes in U.S. Fiscal Policy Transmission?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(7), pages 1439-1470, October.
    2. Holden, Tom, 2008. "Rational macroeconomic learning in linear expectational models," MPRA Paper 10872, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. Andreas Schabert, "undated". "On the Equivalence of Money Growth and Interest Rate Policy," Working Papers 2003_6, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised Apr 2003.
    4. Bennett T. McCallum & Edward Nelson, 2004. "Timeless perspective vs. discretionary monetary policy in forward-looking models," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 86(Mar), pages 43-56.
    5. Olivier Loisel, 2004. "Monetary policy rules to preclude booms and busts," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 56, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    6. Richard Mash, 2003. "A Note on Simple MSV Solution Methods for Rational Expectations Models of Monetary Policy," Economics Series Working Papers 173, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    7. Lars E. O. Svensson & Michael Woodford, 2004. "Implementing Optimal Policy through Inflation-Forecast Targeting," NBER Chapters, in: The Inflation-Targeting Debate, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Shamik Dhar & Stephen P Millard, 2000. "A limited participation model of the monetary transmission mechanism in the United Kingdom," Bank of England working papers 117, Bank of England.
    9. Ibrahim Chowdhury & Andreas Schabert, "undated". "Assessing Money Supply Rules," Working Papers 2003_9, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow, revised May 2003.
    10. Klaeffling, Matt, 2003. "Macroeconomic modelling of monetary policy," Working Paper Series 257, European Central Bank.
    11. Andreas Schabert, 2005. "Money Supply and the Implementation of Interest Rate Targets," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 05-059/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    12. Milani, Fabio, 2008. "Learning, monetary policy rules, and macroeconomic stability," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 32(10), pages 3148-3165, October.
    13. Schabert, Andreas, 2005. "Identifying monetary policy shocks with changes in open market operations," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(3), pages 561-577, April.
    14. Jensen, Christian & McCallum, Bennett T., 2002. "The non-optimality of proposed monetary policy rules under timeless perspective commitment," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 77(2), pages 163-168, October.
    15. Antonio Moreno, 2003. "Reaching Inflation Stability," Faculty Working Papers 13/03, School of Economics and Business Administration, University of Navarra.
    16. Granato, Jim & Guse, Eran A. & Wong, M. C. Sunny, 2008. "Learning From The Expectations Of Others," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 12(3), pages 345-377, June.
    17. Fabio Ghironi, 2000. "Alternative Monetary Rules for a Small Open Economy: The Case of Canada," Boston College Working Papers in Economics 466, Boston College Department of Economics, revised 30 Oct 2000.
    18. Andreas Schabert & Sweder van Wijnbergen, 2006. "Debt, Deficits, and Destabilizing Monetary Policy in Open Economies," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 06-045/2, Tinbergen Institute.
    19. Sujit Kapadia, 2005. "Optimal Monetary Policy under Hysteresis," Economics Series Working Papers 250, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.

    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. Bennett McCallum, 1999. "Role of the Minimal State Variable Criterion in Rational Expectations Models," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 6(4), pages 621-639, November.
    2. McCallum, Bennett T., 2007. "E-stability vis-a-vis determinacy results for a broad class of linear rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1376-1391, April.
    3. Bennett T. McCallum, 2002. "The Unique Minimum State Variable RE Soluiton is E-Stable in All Well Formulated Linear Models," GSIA Working Papers 2003-25, Carnegie Mellon University, Tepper School of Business.
    4. Olivier Loisel, 2004. "Monetary policy rules to preclude booms and busts," Money Macro and Finance (MMF) Research Group Conference 2003 56, Money Macro and Finance Research Group.
    5. McCallum, Bennett T., 2003. "Multiple-solution indeterminacies in monetary policy analysis," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(5), pages 1153-1175, July.
    6. M. Marzo, 2001. "Evaluating Monetary Policy Regimes: the Role of Nominal Rigidities," Working Papers 411, Dipartimento Scienze Economiche, Universita' di Bologna.
    7. Luis-Felipe Zanna & Marco Airaudo, 2005. "Learning about which measure of inflation to target," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 176, Society for Computational Economics.
    8. Bennett T. McCallum, 2009. "Determinacy, Learnability, and Plausibility in Monetary Policy Analysis: Additional Results," Central Banking, Analysis, and Economic Policies Book Series, in: Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel & Carl E. Walsh & Norman Loayza (Series Editor) & Klaus Schmidt-Hebbel (Series (ed.),Monetary Policy under Uncertainty and Learning, edition 1, volume 13, chapter 7, pages 203-225, Central Bank of Chile.
    9. Jan-Oliver Menz & Lena Vogel, 2009. "A Detailed Derivation of the Sticky Price and Sticky Information New Keynesian DSGE Model," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 200902, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    10. Giannoni, Marc P., 2002. "Does Model Uncertainty Justify Caution? Robust Optimal Monetary Policy In A Forward-Looking Model," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 6(1), pages 111-144, February.
    11. Nicoletta Batini & Joe Pearlman, 2002. "Too Much Too Soon: Instability and Indeterminacy with Forward-Looking Rules," Computing in Economics and Finance 2002 182, Society for Computational Economics.
    12. Honkapohja, Seppo & Mitra, Kaushik, 2004. "Are non-fundamental equilibria learnable in models of monetary policy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(8), pages 1743-1770, November.
    13. repec:mpc:wpaper:08 is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Ireland, Peter N., 2003. "Endogenous money or sticky prices?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1623-1648, November.
    15. Stephanie Schmitt-Grohe & Jess Benhabib & Martin Uribe, 2001. "Monetary Policy and Multiple Equilibria," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 167-186, March.
    16. Aoki, Kosuke, 2006. "Optimal commitment policy under noisy information," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 81-109, January.
    17. Mariano Kulish & Adrian Pagan, 2017. "Estimation and Solution of Models with Expectations and Structural Changes," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(2), pages 255-274, March.
    18. Jukka Railavo, 2004. "Effects of the supply-side channel on stabilisation properties of policy rules," Macroeconomics 0404028, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Aoki, Kosuke, 2003. "On the optimal monetary policy response to noisy indicators," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 501-523, April.
    20. Nunes, Ricardo, 2009. "Learning The Inflation Target," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 13(2), pages 167-188, April.
    21. Zhao, Mingjun, 2007. "Monetary policy under misspecified expectations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1278-1299, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General

    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:nbr:nberwo:7087. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.