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on Dynamic General Equilibrium |
| By: | Ghent, Andra |
| Abstract: | I generate priors for a VAR from four competing models of economic fluctuations: a standard RBC model, Fisher’s (2006) investment-specific technology shocks model, an RBC model with capital adjustment costs and habit formation, and a sticky price model with an unaccommodating monetary authority. I compare the accuracy of the forecasts made with each of the resulting VARs. The economic models generate similar forecast errors to one another. However, at horizons of one to two years and greater, the models generally yield superior forecasts to those made using both an unrestricted VAR and a VAR that uses shrinkage from a Minnesota prior. |
| Keywords: | Model Evaluation; Priors from DSGE models; Economic Fluctuations; Hours Debate; Business Cycles; |
| JEL: | C52 E37 E32 C53 E3 C11 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:180&r=dge |
| By: | Chang, Yanqin |
| Abstract: | We study how a small open economy’s assets are prices by heterogeneous international investors. We initially decompose the asset pricing issue into separate studies of its two ingredients: the asset’s ex post return and the investors’ stochastic discount factor. The ex post asset return is examined in a small open economy RBC model featuring adjustment cost in investment. We derive an approximate closed-form solution for the ex post asset return using the Campbell (1994) log-linear technique. The international investors’ stochastic discount factor is taken as given by this small open economy. To examine the international investors’ stochastic discount factor, general equilibrium analysis is called in. We do this by setting up a world economy model. In the world economy model, the production side features a world representative firm which produce the world aggregate output consumed as world aggregate consumption; the consumer side features heterogeneous international investors from N countries in a sense that there are exogenous consumption distribution shocks and the price variation across countries. The shock affects the cross-sectional distribution of consumption goods among international investors but won’t affect the world aggregate level. The market stochastic discount factor hence is derived as a function of the world aggregate consumption growth, the world aggregate price growth and the cross-sectional variances and covariance terms of individual consumption growth and price growth. We then derive the closed-form solutions for asset prices by substituting the two ingredients, the asset’s ex post return from small open economy model and the investors’ stochastic discount factor from a general equilibrium world economy model, into the basic asset pricing formulas. Our model generates a risk premium for a small economy’s asset that tends to be low when the global economy is robust and to soar when global economy experiences a downturn. The main reason behind this is our assumption of heterogeneity across international investors. We also study the capital accumulation and capital loss/gain channels and explore their asset pricing implications. Our major finding is: For a small country that conducts fierce capital accumulation, our model predicts that its risk premium will fluctuate less broadly than one that conducts little capital accumulation. |
| JEL: | F34 G15 G12 |
| Date: | 2006–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:551&r=dge |
| By: | Paul Beaudry; Fabrice Collard; Franck Portier |
| Abstract: | Gold rushes are periods of economic boom, generally associated with large increases in expenditures aimed at securing claims near new found veins of gold. An interesting aspect of gold rushes is that, from a social point of view, much of the increased activity is wasteful since it contributes simply to the expansion of the stock of money. In this paper, we explore whether business cycle fluctuations may sometimes be driven by a phenomenon akin to a gold rush. In particular, we present a model where the opening of new market opportunities causes an economic expansion by favoring competition for market share, which is essentially a dissolution of rents. We call such an episode a market rush. We construct a simple model of a market rush that can be embedded into an otherwise standard Dynamic General Equilibrium model, and show how market rushes can help explain important features of the data. We use a simulated-moment estimator to quantify the role of market rushes in fluctuations. We find that market rushes may account for over half the short run volatility in hours worked and a third of the short run volatility of output. |
| JEL: | E32 |
| Date: | 2006–11 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:nbr:nberwo:12710&r=dge |
| By: | Malik, Hamza |
| Abstract: | A dynamic stochastic general equilibrium monetary model with incomplete and imperfect asset markets, monopolistic competition and staggered nominal price rigidities is developed to shed light on the role of exchange rate and its relation with current account dynamics in the formulation of monetary-exchange rate policies. The paper shows that because of incomplete risk sharing, due to incomplete asset markets, the dynamic relationship between real exchange rate and net foreign assets affect the behaviour of domestic inflation and aggregate output. This, in turn, implies that the optimal monetary policy entail a response to net foreign asset position or the real exchange rate gap defined as the difference between actual real exchange rate and the value that would prevail with flexible prices and complete asset markets. In comparing the performance of alternative monetary-exchange rate policy rules, an interesting and fairly robust result that stands out is that ‘dirty floating’ out-performs flexible exchange rate regime with domestic inflation targeting. |
| Keywords: | optimal monetary policy; incomplete asset markets; net foreign assets; current account dynamics; inflation targeting; exchange rate policy. |
| JEL: | E52 F41 |
| Date: | 2005–08 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:455&r=dge |
| By: | Hess, Gregory; Shin, Kwanho |
| Abstract: | Backus, Kehoe and Kydland (BKK 1992) showed that if international capital markets are complete, consumption growth correlations across countries should be higher than their corresponding output growth correlations. In stark contrast to the theory, however, in actual data the consumption growth correlation is lower than the output growth correlation. By assuming trade imperfections due to non-traded goods, Backus and Smith (1993) showed that there is an additional impediment that works to lower the consumption growth correlation. While Backus and Smith’s argument was successful in partially explaining the low growth correlation puzzle, it contributed to generating another puzzle because the data forcefully showed that consumption growth is negatively correlated with the real exchange rate, which is a violation of the theory. In this paper, by decomposing the real exchange rate growth of the OECD countries into the nominal exchange rate growth and the inflation differential, we find that nominal exchange rate movements are the main source for the Backus-Smith puzzle. We find that the nominal exchange rate moves counter-cyclically with consumption movements, which is a violation of the risk sharing theory with non-traded goods. We also find that the violations are more pronounced when nominal exchange rate changes are larger in absolute value . In contrast, the negative of bilateral inflation differentials is positively correlated with bilateral consumption movements. The latter finding is in accordance with the theory. Furthermore, using intranational data for the United States where the nominal exchange rate is constant, the Backus-Smith puzzle disappears, although complete risk sharing is rejected. |
| Keywords: | Risk Sharing; Exchange Rate |
| JEL: | F36 E44 E32 E21 F31 |
| Date: | 2006–02 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:pra:mprapa:696&r=dge |
| By: | Marcos Antonio C. da Silveira |
| Date: | 2006 |
| URL: | http://d.repec.org/n?u=RePEc:anp:en2006:46&r=dge |