An updated version of our Markov-switching model of U.S. real GDP clearly suggests the COVID-19 recession was more U shaped than L shaped. As with linear time series models, it is important to account for extreme outliers during the pandemic, but a simple decay function for volatility from...

How and under what circumstances can adjusting the inflation target serve as a stabilization-policy tool and contribute to welfare improvement? We answer these questions quantitatively with a standard New Keynesian model that includes cost-push type shocks which create a trade-off between...

Does raising an inflation target require increasing the nominal interest rate in the short run? We answer this question using a standard New Keynesian model with rich backward-looking elements. We first analytically show that the short-run comovement between inflation and the nominal interest...

The Beveridge-Nelson (BN) trend-cycle decomposition based on autoregressive forecasting models of U.S. quarterly real GDP growth produces estimates of the output gap that are strongly at odds with widely-held beliefs about the amplitude, persistence, and even sign of transitory movements in...

We demonstrate how Bayesian shrinkage can address problems with utilizing large information sets to calculate trend and cycle via a multivariate Beveridge-Nelson (BN) decomposition. We illustrate our approach by estimating the U.S. output gap with large Bayesian vector autoregressions that...

This paper describes a fiscal database for Australia including measures of government spending, revenue, deficits, debt and various sub-aggregates as initially published and subsequently revised. The data vintages are collated from various sources and provide a comprehensive description of the...

The paper describes how to measure the fiscal multiplier using budget statements on planned government spending in the current and following years alongside the data on actual outcomes. The multiplier effects can be decomposed to distinguish the effects of ‘policy reactions' versus ‘policy...

We consider which labor market variables are the most informative for estimating and now-casting the U.S. output gap using a multivariate trend-cycle decomposition. Although the unemployment rate clearly contains important cyclical information, it also appears to reflect more persistent...

We propose a way to directly nowcast the output gap using the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition based on a mixed-frequency Bayesian VAR. The mixed-frequency approach produces similar but more timely estimates of the U.S. output gap compared to those based on a quarterly model, the CBO measure of...

We build a multi-sector, open economy model that captures the effects of a commodity boom on unemployment when there is also ongoing structural change. We use Bayesian methods to jointly estimate transition path effects of structural change and business cycle dynamics. Applying our model to the...