We investigate the effects of U.S. monetary policy shocks from alternative policy indicators for a modern sample encompassing 1988–2020. The choice of the Wu and Xia (2016) shadow federal funds rate leads to persistent price puzzles. These puzzles arise despite inclusion of the usual suspect...

We propose a novel approach that directly embeds rational expectations (RE) into a low-dimensional structural vector autoregression (SVAR) without the need for any mapping to a dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (DSGE) model. Beginning from a fully specified “consensus” structural model,...

In their classic 1999 paper, "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (CEE) investigate one of the most widely used methods for identifying monetary policy shocks of its time. Unfortunately, their approach is no longer viable, at least...

In late 2008, deteriorating economic conditions led the Federal Reserve to lower the federal funds rate to near zero and inject massive liquidity into the financial system through novel facilities. The combination of conventional and unconventional measures complicates the challenging task of...

In their classic 1999 paper, Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?, Christiano, Eichenbaum, and Evans (CEE) investigate one of the most widely used methods for identifying monetary policy shocks of its time. Unfortunately, their approach is no longer viable, at least not...

We decompose a 219 year sample of U.S. real output data into permanent and transitory shocks. We find reductions in volatility of output growth and inflation, starting in the mid 1980s, consistent with the “Great Moderation” noted by many others. More importantly, we find periods of even...

Annual changes in volatility of U.S. real output growth and inflation are documented in data from 1870 to 2009 using a time varying parameter VAR model. Both volatilities rise quickly with World War I and its aftermath, stay relatively high until the end of World War II and drop rapidly until...

Changes in volatility of output growth and inflation are examined for eight countries with at least 140 years of uninterrupted data. Time-varying parameter vector autoregressions are used to estimate standard deviations of each variable. Both volatilities rise quickly with World War I and its...

A large literature has shown money demand functions constructed from simple-sum aggregates are unstable. We revisit the controversy surrounding the instability of money demand by examining cointegrating income-money relationships with the Divisia monetary aggregates for the U.S., and compare...