The frequentist and the Bayesian approach to the estimation of autoregressions are often contrasted. Under standard assumptions, when the ordinary least squares (OLS) estimate is close to 1, a frequentist adjusts it upwards to counter the small sample bias, while a Bayesian who uses a at prior...

Many factors inhibiting and facilitating economic growth have been suggested. Can agnostics rely on international income data to tell them which matter? We find that agnostic priors lead to conclusions that are sensitive to differences across available income estimates. For example, the PWT 6.2...

This paper estimates a Bayesian VAR for the US economy which includes a housing sector and addresses the following questions. Can developments in the housing sector be explained on the basis of developments in real and nominal GDP and interest rates? What are the effects of housing demand shocks...

We use a statistical model to estimate impulse responses of sectoral price indices to aggregate shocks and to sector-specific shocks. In the median sector, 100 percent of the long-run response of the sectoral price index to a sector-specific shock occurs in the month of the shock. The Calvo...