We identify a ‘risk news' shock in a vector autoregression (VAR), modifying Barsky and Sims’s procedure, while incorporating sign restrictions to simultaneously identify monetary policy, technology and demand shocks. The VAR-identifed risk news shock is estimated to account for around 2%-12%...

This paper explores the effects of measurement error on dynamic forecasting models. It illustrates a trade-off that confronts forecasters and policymakers when they use data that are measured with error. On the one hand, observations on recent data give valuable clues as to the shocks that are...

Over time, economic statistics are refined. This means that newer data are typically less well measured than old data. Time or vintage-variation in measurement error like this influences how forecasts should be made. Measurement error is obviously not directly observable. This paper shows that...

Using a model of deterministic structural change, we revisit several topics in inflation dynamics explored previously using stochastic, time-varying parameter models. We document significant reductions in inflation persistence and predictability. We estimate that changes in the volatility of...

We consider time series forecasting in the presence of ongoing structural change where both the time-series dependence and the nature of the structural change are unknown. Methods that downweight older data, such as rolling regressions, forecast averaging over different windows and exponentially...

This paper examines the macroeconomic impact of the first round of quantitative easing (QE) by the Bank of England which started in March 2009. Although Bank Rate, the UK policy rate, was reduced to ½%, effectively its lower bound, the Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee felt that additional...

This paper quantifies for the United Kingdom the general equilibrium costs of individuals holding cash to economise on 'shopping time'. These are a subset of a wider range of costs caused by inflation. The paper tests whether or not money balances tend to a finite number as nominal interest...

This paper investigates whether firms with direct access to capital markets 'help out' firms who are reliant on credit from banks by extending more trade credit when times are hard. In other words, is there a 'trade credit channel' that offsets the bank credit channel more familiar to monetary...

Why is inflation so much lower and at the same time more stable in developed economies in the 1990s, compared with the 1970s? This paper suggests that the United Kingdom, United States and other countries may have escaped from a volatile inflation equilibrium. Our argument builds on the story...

We show that interest rate rules that feed back on the growth rates of target variables (such as output or asset prices) may induce recessions in the presence of a zero lower bound, through purely self-fulfilling dynamics. This pathology is illustrated in a small New Keynesian model with...