Working Papers

The Statistical Behavior of GDP after Financial Crises and Severe Recessions

 

(with Ruxandra Prodan)

 

Do severe recessions associated with financial crises cause permanent reductions in potential GDP, or does the economy return to its trend? If the economy eventually returns to its trend, does the return take longer than the return following recessions not associated with financial crises? We develop a statistical methodology that is appropriate for identifying and analyzing slumps, episodes that combine a contraction and an expansion, and end when the economy returns to its trend growth rate. We analyze the Great Depression of the 1930s for the U.S., severe and milder financial crises for advanced economics, severe financial crises for emerging markets, and postwar recessions for the U.S. and other advanced economies. The preponderance of evidence for episodes comparable with the current U.S. slump is that, while potential GDP is eventually restored, the slumps last an average of nine years. If this historical pattern holds, the Great Recession that started in 2007:4 will not ultimately affect potential GDP, but the Great Slump is not yet half over. (October 2011)

 

Taylor’s Rule versus Taylor Rules

 

(with Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy)

 

Does the Taylor rule prescribe negative interest rates for 2009-2011? This question is important because negative prescribed interest rates provide a justification for quantitative easing once actual policy rates hit the zero lower bound. We answer the question by analyzing Fed policy following the recessions of the early-to-mid 1970s, the early 1990s, and the early 2000s in the context of both Taylor’s original rule and latter variants of Taylor rules. While Taylor’s original rule, which can be justified by historical experience during and following the recessions, does not produce negative prescribed interest rates for 2009-2011, variants of Taylor rules with larger output gap coefficients, which do produce negative interest rates, cannot be justified by the same historical experience. We conclude that the Taylor rule does not provide a rationale for quantitative easing. (May 2011)

 

The (Un)Reliability of Real-Time Output Gap Estimates with Revised Data

 

(with Onur Ince)

 

This paper investigates the differences between real-time and ex-post output gap estimates using a newly-constructed international real-time data set over the period from 1973:Q1 to 2007:Q2. We extend the findings in Orphanides and van Norden (2002) for the United States that the use of ex-post information in calculating potential output, not the data revisions themselves, is the major cause of the difference between real-time and ex-post output gap estimates to nine additional OECD countries. The results are robust to the use of linear, quadratic, Hodrick-Prescott, and Baxter-King detrending methods. By using quasi real-time methods, reliable real-time output gap estimates can be constructed with revised data. (May 2011)

 

Time Series Tests of Constant Steady-State Growth

 

(with Ruxandra Prodan)

 

We propose a new methodology to study the stability of steady-state growth. Long-run GDP per capita can be characterized by: (1) the linear trend hypothesis, where there are no long-run changes in GDP levels or growth rates, (2) the level shift hypothesis, where there are long-run level shifts, but not changes in growth rates, and (3) the growth shift hypothesis, where there are long-run changes in both GDP levels and growth rates. We formally test these hypotheses using time series techniques with over 135 years of data. The results are not favorable to the hypothesis of constant steady-state growth. While we find evidence supporting the linear trend hypothesis for the United States and Canada and the level shift hypothesis for three additional OECD countries, the growth shift hypothesis is supported for seven OECD and four Asian countries. The results are not driven by transition dynamics. (March 2011)

 

Taylor Rules and the Great Inflation: Lessons from the 1970s for the Road Ahead for the Fed

 

(with Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy)

 

Can U.S. monetary policy in the 1970s be described by a stabilizing Taylor rule with a two percent inflation target when policy is evaluated with real-time inflation and output gap data? If so, it is problematic to use the Taylor rule as a guide to good policy today since the same policy produced the Great Inflation. Using economic research on the full employment level of unemployment and the natural rate of unemployment published between 1970 and 1977 to construct real-time output gap measures for the periods of peak unemployment, we find that the Federal Reserve did not follow a Taylor rule if appropriate measures are used. We estimate Taylor rules and find no evidence that monetary policy stabilized inflation, even allowing for changes in the inflation target. While monetary policy was stabilizing with respect to inflation forecasts, the forecasts systematically under-predicted inflation following the 1970s recessions and this does not constitute evidence of stabilizing policy. We also find that the Federal Reserve responded too strongly to negative output gaps. The results suggest that the Federal Reserve should stabilize inflation rather than inflation forecasts and not respond too strongly to the output gap. (January 2011)

 

Are Euro Area Inflation Rates Misaligned?

 

(with Claude Lopez)

 

We study the behavior of inflation rates among Euro countries. More specifically, we are interested in testing whether and when group convergence dictated by the Maastricht treaty occurs, and we assess the impact of events such as the advent of the Euro and the 2008 financial crisis. Due to the small size of the estimation sample, we propose a new procedure that increases the power of panel unit root tests when used to study group-wise convergence. Applying this new procedure to Euro Area inflation, we find strong and lasting evidence of convergence among the inflation rates soon after the implementation of the Maastricht treaty and a dramatic decrease in the persistence of the differential after the occurrence of the single currency. Furthermore, while we find divergence among some of the Euro countries prior to the 2008 financial crisis, the convergence is strengthened after the crisis for all countries except Greece. (January 2011)

 

Inflation Persistence and the Taylor Principle

 

(with Chris Murray and Alex Nikolsko-Rzhevskyy)

 

Although the persistence of inflation is a central concern of macroeconomics, there is no consensus regarding whether or not inflation is stationary or has a unit root. In the context of a “textbook” macroeconomic model, inflation is stationary if and only if the Taylor rule obeys the Taylor principle, so that the real interest rate is increased when inflation rises above the target inflation rate. We estimate Markov switching models for both inflation and real-time forward looking Taylor rules. Inflation appears to have a unit root for most of the 1967 – 1981 period, but is stationary before 1967 and after 1981. We find that the Fed’s response to inflation is also regime dependent, with the pre and post-Volcker samples both containing monetary regimes where the Fed did and did not follow the Taylor principle. (June 2009)

 

Median-Unbiased Estimation in DF-GLS Regressions and the PPP Puzzle

 

(with Claude Lopez and Chris Murray)

 

Using median-unbiased estimation based on Augmented-Dickey-Fuller (ADF) regressions, recent research has questioned the validity of Rogoff’s “remarkable consensus” of 3-5 year half-lives of deviations from PPP. The confidence intervals of these half-life estimates, however, are extremely wide, with lower bounds of about one year and upper bounds of infinity. We extend median-unbiased estimation to the DF-GLS regression of Elliott, Rothenberg, and Stock (1996). We find that combining median-unbiased estimation with this regression has the potential to tighten confidence intervals for the half-lives. Using long horizon real exchange rate data, we find that the typical lower bound of the confidence intervals for median-unbiased half-lives is just under 3 years. Thus, while previous confidence intervals for median-unbiased half-lives are consistent with virtually anything, our tighter confidence intervals are inconsistent with economic models with nominal rigidities as candidates for explaining the observed behavior of real exchange rates and move us away from solving the PPP puzzle. (February 2009)

 

 

 

 

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