We examine the behavior of forward and spot exchange rates from the perspective of the representative agent theory of asset pricing. We verify that with moderate risk aversion and time-additive preferences the theory accounts for very little (by our calculations, less than 5 percent) of the...

Much recent business cycle research focuses on moments of macroeconomic aggregates. We construct examples of real business cycle sample paths for output, consumption, and employment for the U.S. economy. Annual sample paths are generated from an initial condition in 1925, measured technology and...

An SVAR in US federal spending, federal revenue, and GDP is a standard setting for the study of the impact of fiscal shocks. An appealing feature of identifying a fiscal shock with an external instrument is that one can find the effects of that shock without fully identifying the SVAR. But we...

Monte Carlo evidence has made it clear that asymptotic tests based on generalized method of moments (GMM) estimation have disappointing size. The problem is exacerbated when the moment conditions are serially correlated. Several block bootstrap techniques have been proposed to correct the...

We outline in turn criticisms made by econometricians of the methods used in empirical business-cycle research and then criticisms made by business-cycle researchers of some methods used by econometricians. The aim is to clarify and in some cases correct these criticisms. Overall there is no...

This paper investigates the behaviour of estimators based on the Kullback-Leibler information criterion (KLIC), as an alternative to the generalized method of moments (GMM). We first study the estimators in a Monte Carlo simulation model of consumption growth with power utility. Then we compare...

Business cycles may be defined or measured by parametrizing detrending filters to maximize the ability of a business-cycle model to match the moments of the remaining cycles. Thus a theory can be used to guide cycle measurement. We present two applications to U.S. postwar data. In the first...

Using Kalman filtering and dynamic factor analysis, we decompose fluctuations in real aggregate output, consumption, and investment for the G7 countries into factors that are (i) common across all countries and aggregates, (ii) common across aggregates within a country, and (iii) specific to...

This paper analyses the effects of inflation on ex-post real interest rates in an international framework. A dynamic factor model is estimated in which real interest rates are influenced by real interest and inflation factors that are common to all the countries, and by country- specific...

Dynamic factor analysis and Kalman filtering are used to construct a measure of common economic activity for the G7 countries. Common movements are important in productivity, but account for a substantially smaller share of movements in investment, and virtually none of the variation in the...