Studies of bond return predictability find a puzzling disparity between strong statistical evidence of return predictability and the failure to convert return forecasts into economic gains. We show that resolving this puzzle requires accounting for important features of bond return models such...

We consider mean-variance portfolio choice of a robust investor. The investor receives advice from J experts, each with a different prior for the distribution of returns. Confronted with these multiple priors the investor follows a min-max portfolio strategy. We study the structure of the robust...

We study the effects of model uncertainty in a simple New-Keynesian model using robust control techniques. Due to the simple model structure, we are able to find closed-form solutions for the robust control problem, analysing both instrument rules and targeting rules under different timing...

This paper starts from the observation that parameter instability and model uncertainty are relevant problems for the analysis of monetary policy in small macroeconomic models. We propose to deal with these two problems by implementing a novel ‘thick recursive modelling’ approach. At each...

Futures markets are a potentially valuable source of information about market expectations. Exploiting this information has proved difficult in practice, because the presence of a timevarying risk premium often renders the futures price a poor measure of the market expectation of the price of...

In the aftermath of the global financial crisis, the state of macroeconomic modeling and the use of macroeconomic models in policy analysis has come under heavy criticism. Macroeconomists in academia and policy institutions have been blamed for relying too much on a particular class of...

The complexity resulting from intertwined uncertainties regarding model misspecification and mismeasurement of the state of the economy defines the monetary policy landscape. Using the euro area as laboratory this paper explores the design of robust policy guides aiming to maintain stability in...

Renewed interest in fiscal policy has increased the use of quantitative models to evaluate policy. Because of modeling uncertainty, it is essential that policy evaluations be robust to alternative assumptions. We find that models currently being used in practice to evaluate fiscal policy...

The main obstacles to coordinating policies in practice are uncertainty about the correct model to use for policy design, and uncertainty about external variables. This paper examines the former problem. Numerical calculations using ten models from the recent Brookings Multicountry comparison...

While empirical evidence finds only a weak relationship between nominal exchange rates and macroeconomic fundamentals, forex markets participants often attribute exchange rate movements to a macroeconomic variable. The variables that matter, however, appear to change over time and one variable...