Since Galí [1999], long-run restricted VARs have become the standard for identifying the effects of technology shocks. In a recent paper, Francis et al. [2008] proposed an alternative to identify technology as the shock that maximizes the forecast-error variance share of labor productivity at...

With rare exception, studies of monetary policy tend to neglect the timing of innovations to monetary policy instruments. Models which take timing seriously are often difficult to compare to standard monetary VARs because each uses different frequencies. We propose using MIDAS regressions that...

With rare exception, studies of monetary policy tend to neglect the timing of the innovations to the monetary policy instrument. Models which do take timing seriously are often difficult to compare to standard VAR models of monetary policy because of the differences in the frequency that they...

Much of the literature examining the effects of oil shocks asks the question - “What is an oil shock?” and has concluded that oil-price increases are asymmetric in their effects on the US economy. That is, sharp increases in oil prices affect economic activity adversely, but sharp decreases...

Oil prices rose sharply prior to the onset of the 2007-2009 recession. Hamilton (2005) noted that nine of the last ten recessions in the United States were preceded by a substantial increase in the price of oil. In this paper, we consider whether oil price shocks significantly increase the...