We propose a benchmark prior for the estimation of vector autoregressions: a prior about initial growth rates of the modeled series. We first show that the Bayesian vs frequentist small sample bias controversy is driven by different default initial conditions. These initial conditions are...

A researcher is interested in a set of variables that he wants to model with a vector auto-regression and he has a dataset with more variables. Which variables from the dataset to include in the VAR, in addition to the variables of interest? This question arises in many applications of VARs, in...

How do prices react to large aggregate shocks? Our new micro-data evidence on value-added tax changes shows that prices react (i) flexibly and (ii) asymmetrically to large positive and negative shocks. We use it to quantitatively evaluate the performance of prominent pricing models. We show that...

We study whether it is desirable for the central bank to supply reserves abundantly, i.e. beyond the level that satisfies financial institutions' aggregate liquidity needs. Using a theoretical framework, we demonstrate that abundant reserves would help fulfil the private sector's demand for safe...

We use microdata to estimate the strength of price selection - a key metric for the effect of monetary policy on the real economy. We propose a product-level proxy for mispricing and assess whether products with larger mispricing respond with a higher probability to identified monetary and...