We generalize the Unobserved Components (UC) model to allow the permanent component to have different dynamics than the transitory components when decomposing US economic activity using a multivariate UC model of (log) output, consumption and investment. We find that these proposed dynamics in...

Recent work finds evidence that the volatility of the U.S. economy fell dramatically around the first quarter of 1984. We trace the timing of this so-called "Great Moderation" across many subsectors of the economy in order to better understand its root cause. We find that the interest rate...