Putting the New Keynesian Model to a Test


Book Description

In recent years, New Keynesian dynamic stochastic general equilibrium (NK DSGE) models have become increasingly popular in the academic literature and in policy analysis. However, the success of these models in reproducing the dynamic behavior of an economy following structural shocks is still disputed. This paper attempts to shed light on this issue. We use a VAR with sign restrictions that are robust to model and parameter uncertainty to estimate the effects of monetary policy, preference, government spending, investment, price markup, technology, and labor supply shocks on macroeconomic variables in the United States and the euro area. In contrast to the NK DSGE models, the empirical results indicate that technology shocks have a positive effect on hours worked, and investment and preference shocks have a positive impact on consumption and investment, respectively. While the former is in line with the predictions of Real Business Cycle models, the latter indicates the relevance of accelerator effects, as described by earlier Keynesian models. We also show that NK DSGE models might overemphasize the contribution of cost-push shocks to business cycle fluctuations while, at the same time, underestimating the importance of other shocks such as changes to technology and investment adjustment costs.







The New Keynesian Phillips Curve in the United States and the Euro Area


Book Description

In the recent past, the empirical literature on the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) has grown rapidly. The NKPC has been shown to describe satisfactorily the relationship between inflation and marginal cost both for the United States and the euro area. However, little attention has been given so far to the stability and robustness of the parameters in the estimated NKPC. In this paper, we aim to help fill this gap. After estimating hybrid NKPCs on US and euro-area data using the generalised method of moments and having found that our results are broadly in line with previous findings, we subject our estimated NKPCs to a thorough stability analysis. We find that the estimated coefficients for the United States are stable, whereas those for the euro area are considerably less stable. We then investigate the possible reasons for this instability. One explanation, explored using the Andrews' test, is the presence of structural breaks. Another possibility is the presence of an aggregation bias, which we investigate by estimating NKPCs for the three largest euro-area economies: Germany, France and Italy. At this disaggregated level, the fit of the NKPC improves, but the coefficients are still unstable. Furthermore, the disaggregated analysis indicates the presence of structural breaks in the three largest euro-area economies.




Testing the New Keynesian Phillips Curve Through Vector Autoregressive Models: Results from the Euro Area


Book Description

In this paper we set out a test of the New Keynesian Phillips Curve (NKPC) based on Vector Autoregressive (VAR) models. The proposed technique does not rely on the Anderson and Moore (1985) method and can be implemented with any existing econometric software. The idea is to use a VAR involving the inflation rate and the forcing variable(s) as the expectation generating system and find the restrictions that nest the NKPC within the VAR. The model can be estimated and tested through maximum likelihood methods. We show that the presence of feedbacks from the inflation rate to the forcing variable(s) can affect solution properties of the NKPC; when feedbacks are detected the VAR should be regarded as the final form solution of a more general structural model. Possible non-stationary in the variables can be easily taken into account within our framework. Empirical results point that the standard "hybrid" versions of the NKPC are far from being a good first approximation to the dynamics of inflation in the Euro area.




Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle


Book Description

The classic introduction to the New Keynesian economic model This revised second edition of Monetary Policy, Inflation, and the Business Cycle provides a rigorous graduate-level introduction to the New Keynesian framework and its applications to monetary policy. The New Keynesian framework is the workhorse for the analysis of monetary policy and its implications for inflation, economic fluctuations, and welfare. A backbone of the new generation of medium-scale models under development at major central banks and international policy institutions, the framework provides the theoretical underpinnings for the price stability–oriented strategies adopted by most central banks in the industrialized world. Using a canonical version of the New Keynesian model as a reference, Jordi Galí explores various issues pertaining to monetary policy's design, including optimal monetary policy and the desirability of simple policy rules. He analyzes several extensions of the baseline model, allowing for cost-push shocks, nominal wage rigidities, and open economy factors. In each case, the effects on monetary policy are addressed, with emphasis on the desirability of inflation-targeting policies. New material includes the zero lower bound on nominal interest rates and an analysis of unemployment’s significance for monetary policy. The most up-to-date introduction to the New Keynesian framework available A single benchmark model used throughout New materials and exercises included An ideal resource for graduate students, researchers, and market analysts




Testing the New Keynesian Phillips Curve Through Vector Autoregressive Models


Book Description

This paper addresses the issue of testing the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve (NKPC) through vector autoregressive (VAR) systems and likelihood methods, giving special emphasis to the case where the variables are non-stationary. The idea is to use a VAR for both the inflation rate and the explanatory variable(s) to approximate the dynamics of the system and derive testable restrictions. Attention is focused on the inexact formulation of the NKPC. Empirical results over the period 1971-98 show that the NKPC is far from providing a good first approximation of inflation dynamics in the Euro area.




Testing for a Forward-Looking Phillips Curve


Book Description

The "New Keynesian" Phillips Curve (NKPC) states that inflation has a purely forward-looking dynamics. In this paper, we test whether European and US inflation dynamics can be described by this model. For this purpose, we estimate hybrid Phillips curves, which include both backward and forward-looking components, for major European countries, the euro area, and the US. Estimation is performed using the GMM technique as well as the ML approach. We examine the sensitivity of the results to the choice of output gap or marginal cost as the driving variable, and test the stability of the obtained specifications. Our findings can be summarized as follows. First, in all countries, the NKPC has to be augmented by additional lags and leads of inflation, in contrast to the prediction of the core model. Second, the fraction of backward-looking price setters is large (in most cases, more than 50 percent), suggesting only limited differences between the US and the euro area. Finally, our preferred specification includes marginal cost in the case of the US and the UK, and output gap in the euro area.







The ECB’s Monetary Analysis Revisited


Book Description

Monetary aggregates continue to play an important role in the ECB's policy strategy. This paper revisits the case for money, surveying the ongoing theoretical and empirical debate. The key conclusion is that an exclusive focus on non-monetary factors alone may leave the ECB with an incomplete picture of the economy. However, treating monetary factors as a separate matter is a second-best solution. Instead, a general-equilibrium inspired analytical framework that merges the economic and monetary "pillars" of the ECB's policy strategy appears the most promising way forward. The role played by monetary aggregates in such unified framework may be rather limited. However, an integrated framework would facilitate the presentation of policy decisions by providing a clearer narrative of the relative role of money in the interaction with other economic and financial sector variables, including asset prices, and their impact on consumer prices.