NBER 31st Annual Conference on Macroeconomics

I am here today and tomorrow:

National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
31st Annual Conference on Macroeconomics
Martin Eichenbaum and Jonathan Parker, Organizers
Royal Sonesta Hotel
Cambridge, MA  

PROGRAM

Friday, April 15: 

9:00 am
Jeffrey Campbell, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Jonas Fisher, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Alejandro Justiniano, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Leonardo Melosi, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago
Forward Guidance and Macroeconomic Outcomes Since the Financial Crisis

Discussants:
Narayana Kocherlakota, University of Rochester and NBER
Gauti B. Eggertsson, Brown University and NBER

11:00 am
Fernando Alvarez, University of Chicago and NBER
Francesco Lippi, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance
Juan Passadore, Einaudi Institute for Economics and Finance
Are State and Time Dependent Models Really Different?

Discussants:
John Leahy, University of Michigan and NBER
Greg Kaplan, Princeton University and NBER

12:30 pm Lunch Panel on Global Commodity Prices
James D. Hamilton, University of California at San Diego and NBER
Steven B. Kamin, Federal Reserve Board
Steven Strongin, Goldman Sachs

 2:30 pm
Paul Beaudry, University of British Columbia and NBER
Dana Galizia, Carleton University
Franck Portier, Toulouse School of Economics
Is the Macroeconomy Locally Unstable and Why Should We Care?

Discussants:
Laura Veldkamp, New York University and NBER
Ivan Werning, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and NBER

4:30 pm
Òscar Jordà, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco
Moritz Schularick, University of Bonn
Alan M. Taylor, University of California at Davis and NBER
Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts

Discussants:
Mark Gertler, New York University and NBER
Atif Mian, Princeton University and NBER

6:30 pm Dinner Speaker: 
Lawrence Summers, Harvard University and NBER

Saturday, April 16:

9:00 am
Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, University of California at Berkeley and NBER
Thomas Philippon, New York University and NBER
Dimitri Vayanos, London School of Economics and NBER
The Analytics of the Greek Crisis

Discussants:
Olivier Blanchard, Peterson Institute for International Economics and NBER
Markus Brunnermeier, Princeton University and NBER

11:00 am
Olivier Blanchard, Peterson Institute for International Economics and NBER
Christopher Erceg, Federal Reserve Board
Jesper Lindé, Sveriges Riksbank
Jump-Starting the Euro Area Recovery: Would a Rise in Core Fiscal Spending Help the Periphery?

Discussants:
Harald Uhlig, University of Chicago and NBER
Ricardo Reis, Columbia University and NBER

Abstracts

Forward Guidance and Macroeconomic Outcomes Since the Financial Crisis, by Jeffrey R. Campbell, Jonas D. M. Fisher, Alejandro Justiniano, and Leonardo Melosi: April 13, 2016 Abstract This paper studies the effects of FOMC forward guidance. We begin by using high frequency identification and direct measures of FOMC private information to show that puzzling responses of private sector forecasts to movements in federal funds futures rates on FOMC announcement days can be attributed almost entirely to Delphic forward guidance. However a large fraction of futures rates’ variability on announcement days remains unexplained leaving open the possibility that the FOMC has successfully communicated Odyssean guidance. We then examine whether the FOMC used Odyssean guidance to improve macroeconomic outcomes since the financial crisis. To this end we use an estimated medium-scale New Keynesian model to perform a counterfactual experiment for the period 2009:1–2014q4 in which we assume the FOMC did not employ any Odyssean guidance and instead followed its reaction function inherited from before the crisis as closely as possible while respecting the effective lower bound. We find that a purely rule-based policy would have delivered better outcomes in the years immediately following the crisis – forward guidance was counterproductive. However starting toward the end of 2011, after the Fed’s introduction of “calendar-based” communications, Odyssean guidance appears to have boosted real activity and moved inflation closer to target. We show that our results do not reflect Del Negro, Giannoni, and Patterson (2015)’s forward guidance puzzle.

Are State and Time dependent models really different?, Fernando Alvarez, Francesco Lippi Einaudi, Juan Passadore:  April 13, 2016 FIRST DRAFT Abstract Yes, but only for large monetary shocks. In particular, we show that for a large class of models where shocks have continuous paths, the propagation of a monetary impulse is independent of the nature of the sticky price friction when shocks are small. The propagation of large shocks instead depends on the nature of the friction: the impulse response of inflation to monetary shocks is non-linear in state-dependent models, while it is independent of the shock size in time-dependent models. We use data on exchange rate devaluations and inflation for a panel of countries over 1974-2014 to test for the presence of state dependent decision rules. We find evidence of a non-linear effect of exchange rate changes on prices in the sample of flexible-exchange rate countries with low inflation. In particular, we find that large exchange rate changes have larger short term pass through, as implied by state dependent models.

Is the Macroeconomy Locally Unstable and Why Should We Care?, by Paul Beaudry, Dana Galizia, and Franck Portier: March 2016 Abstract In most modern macroeconomic models, the steady state (or balanced growth path) of the system is a local attractor, in the sense that, in the absence of shocks, the economy would converge to the steady state. In this paper, we examine whether the time series behavior of macroeconomic aggregates (especially labor market aggregates) is in fact supportive of this local-stability view of macroeconomic dynamics, or if it instead favors an alternative interpretation in which the macroeconomy may be better characterized as being locally unstable, with nonlinear deterministic forces capable of producing endogenous cyclical behavior. To do this, we extend a standard AR representation of the data to allow for smooth nonlinearities. Our main finding is that, even using a procedure that may have low power to detect local instability, the data provide intriguing support for the view that the macroeconomy may be locally unstable and involve limit-cycle forces. An interesting finding is that the degree of nonlinearity we detect in the data is small, but nevertheless enough to alter the description of macroeconomic behavior. We complete the paper with a discussion of the extent to which these two different views about the inherent dynamics of the macroeconomy may matter for policy.

Macrofinancial History and the New Business Cycle Facts. by Oscar Jordà, Moritz Schularick, and Alan M. Taylor: Abstract In the era of modern finance, a century-long near-stable ratio of credit to GDP gave way to increasing financialization and surging leverage in advanced economies in the last forty years. This “financial hockey stick” coincides with shifts in foundational macroeconomic relationships beyond the widely-noted return of macroeconomic fragility and crisis risk. Leverage is correlated with central business cycle moments. We document an extensive set of such moments based on a decade-long international and historical data collection effort. More financialized economies exhibit somewhat less real volatility but lower growth, more tail risk, and tighter real-real and real- financial correlations. International real and financial cycles also cohere more strongly. The new stylized facts we document should prove fertile ground for the development of a newer generation of macroeconomic models with a prominent role for financial factors.

The Analytics of the Greek Crisis, by Pierre-Olivier Gourinchas, Thomas Philippon, and Dimitri Vayanos: April 13, 2016 Abstract This paper presents an interim and analytical report on the Greek Crisis of 2010. The Greek crisis presents a number of important features that sets it apart from the typical sudden stop, sovereign default, or lending boom/bust episodes of the last quarter century. We provide an analytical account of the Greek crisis using a rich model designed to capture the main financial and macro linkages of a small open economy. Using the model to parse through the wreckage, we uncover the following main findings: (a) Greece experienced a more prolonged and severe decline in output per capita than almost any crisis on record since 1980; (b) the crisis was significantly backloaded, thanks to important financial assistance mechanisms; (c) a sizable share of the crisis was the consequence of the sudden stop that started in late 2009; (d) the severity of the crisis was compounded by elevated initial levels of exposure (external debt, public debt, domestic credit), vastly in excess of levels observed in typical emerging economies. In summary: Greece experienced a typical Emerging Market Sudden Stop crisis, with the initial exposure levels of an Advanced Economy

Jump-Starting the Euro Area Recovery: Would a Rise in Core Fiscal Spending Help the Periphery?, by Olivier Blanchard, Christopher J. Erceg, Jesper Linde: March 24, 2016 Abstract We show that a Öscal expansion by the core economies of the euro area would have a large and positive impact on periphery GDP assuming that policy rates remain low for a prolonged period. Under our preferred model specification, an expansion of core government spending equal to one percent of euro area GDP would boost periphery GDP around 1 percent in a liquidity trap lasting three years, nearly half as large as the effect on core GDP. Accordingly, under a standard ad hoc loss function involving output and inflation gaps, increasing core spending would generate substantial welfare improvements, especially in the periphery. The benefits are considerably smaller under a utility-based welfare measure, reflecting in part that higher net exports play a material role in raising periphery GDP.