Rich data generating mechanisms are ubiquitous in this age of information and require complex statistical models to draw meaningful inference. While Bayesian analysis has seen enormous development in the last 30 years, benefitting from the impetus given by the successful application of Markov...

In this paper, I examine the welfare consequences of conventional approximation methods in business cycle analysis: the log-linear approximation of model dynamics and the second-order approximation of social welfare. In a canonical New Keynesian model, the approximation around the deterministic...