IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eso/journl/v50y2019i1p5-34.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Inside the "Upside Down": Estimating Ireland's Output Gap

Author

Listed:
  • Eddie Casey

    (Irish Fiscal Advisory Council and University College Dublin)

Abstract

This paper attempts to identify estimates of Ireland’s output gap that are relevant for fiscal policy. In contrast to standard approaches, we focus on measures of domestic economic activity, given its relatively more tax-rich nature. We examine and test various methods based on univariate/multivariate filters and principal components analysis, comparing our estimates with those of the EU Commonly Agreed Methodology. We find that our results are stable; are less complex in structure; are able to explain price and wage inflation; and, most importantly, yield estimates that are more plausible for Ireland.

Suggested Citation

  • Eddie Casey, 2019. "Inside the "Upside Down": Estimating Ireland's Output Gap," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 50(1), pages 5-34.
  • Handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:50:y:2019:i:1:p:5-34
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.esr.ie/article/view/1117/210
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Charles F. Manski, 2013. "Response to the Review of ‘Public Policy in an Uncertain World’," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 0, pages 412-415, August.
    2. Blix, Mårten, 1999. "Forecasting Swedish Inflation With a Markov Switching VAR," Working Paper Series 76, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    3. Elena Rusticelli & David Turner & Maria Chiara Cavalleri, 2015. "Incorporating Anchored Inflation Expectations in the Phillips Curve and in the Derivation of OECD Measures of Equilibrium Unemployment," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 1231, OECD Publishing.
    4. Robert J. Gordon, 1997. "The Time-Varying NAIRU and Its Implications for Economic Policy," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 11-32, Winter.
    5. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    6. Thiess Buettner & Bjoern Kauder, 2010. "Revenue Forecasting Practices: Differences across Countries and Consequences for Forecasting Performance," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 31(3), pages 313-340, September.
    7. James D. Hamilton, 2017. "Why You Should Never Use the Hodrick-Prescott Filter," NBER Working Papers 23429, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Claudio Borio & Piti Disyatat & Mikael Juselius, 2014. "A parsimonious approach to incorporating economic information in measures of potential output," BIS Working Papers 442, Bank for International Settlements.
    9. Claudio BorioBy & Piti Disyatat & Mikael Juselius, 2017. "Rethinking potential output: embedding information about the financial cycle," Oxford Economic Papers, Oxford University Press, vol. 69(3), pages 655-677.
    10. Matthieu Bussière & Marcel Fratzscher, 2008. "Financial Openness and Growth: Short‐run Gain, Long‐run Pain?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 16(1), pages 69-95, February.
    11. Morten O. Ravn & Harald Uhlig, 2002. "On adjusting the Hodrick-Prescott filter for the frequency of observations," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(2), pages 371-375.
    12. Carlos Cuerpo & Ángel Cuevas & Enrique M. Quilis, 2018. "Estimating output gap: a beauty contest approach," SERIEs: Journal of the Spanish Economic Association, Springer;Spanish Economic Association, vol. 9(3), pages 275-304, August.
    13. Zsolt Darvas & Andras Simon, 2015. "Filling the gap: open economy considerations for more reliable potential output estimates," CERS-IE WORKING PAPERS 1557, Institute of Economics, Centre for Economic and Regional Studies.
    14. Groen, Jan J.J. & Kapetanios, George, 2016. "Revisiting useful approaches to data-rich macroeconomic forecasting," Computational Statistics & Data Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 221-239.
    15. Kuttner, Kenneth N, 1994. "Estimating Potential Output as a Latent Variable," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(3), pages 361-368, July.
    16. Fabian Bornhorst & Annalisa Fedelino & Jan Gottschalk & Gabriela Dobrescu, 2011. "When and How to Adjust Beyond the Business Cycle? A Guide to Structural Fiscal Balances," IMF Technical Notes and Manuals 11/02, International Monetary Fund.
    17. Karel Havik & Kieran Mc Morrow & Fabrice Orlandi & Christophe Planas & Rafal Raciborski & Werner Roeger & Alessandro Rossi & Anna Thum-Thysen & Valerie Vandermeulen, 2014. "The Production Function Methodology for Calculating Potential Growth Rates & Output Gaps," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 535, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    18. Manski, Charles F., 2013. "Public Policy in an Uncertain World: Analysis and Decisions," Economics Books, Harvard University Press, number 9780674066892, Spring.
    19. Eddie Casey & Diarmaid Smyth, 2016. "Revisions to Macroeconomic Data: Ireland and the OECD," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 47(1), pages 33-68.
    20. Agust n S. B n trix & Philip R. Lane, 2015. "Financial Cycles and Fiscal Cycles," Trinity Economics Papers tep0815, Trinity College Dublin, Department of Economics.
    21. Obstfeld, Maurice, 1986. "Capital mobility in the world economy: Theory and measurement," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 24(1), pages 55-103, January.
    22. Ms. Sweta Chaman Saxena & Ms. Valerie Cerra, 2000. "Alternative Methods of Estimating Potential Output and the Output Gap: An Application to Sweden," IMF Working Papers 2000/059, International Monetary Fund.
    23. Christophe Planas & Werner Roeger & Alessandro Rossi, 2010. "Does capacity utilisation help estimating the TFP cycle?," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 410, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    24. Fabian Bornhorst & Ms. Annalisa Fedelino & Jan Gottschalk & Miss Gabriela Dobrescu, 2011. "When and How to Adjust Beyond the Business Cycle? A Guide to Structural Fiscal Balances," IMF Technical Notes and Manuals 2011/002, International Monetary Fund.
    25. Claude Giorno & Pete Richardson & Deborah Roseveare & Paul van den Noord, 1995. "Estimating Potential Output, Output Gaps and Structural Budget Balances," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 152, OECD Publishing.
    26. Daragh Clancy, 2013. "Output Gap Estimation Uncertainty: Extracting the TFP Cycle Using an Aggregated PMI Series," The Economic and Social Review, Economic and Social Studies, vol. 44(1), pages 1-18.
    27. Zsolt Darvas & András Simon, 2015. "Filling the Gap-- Open Economy Considerations for More Reliable Potential Output Estimates," EcoMod2015 8650, EcoMod.
    28. Fioramanti, Marco, 2016. "Potential Output, Output Gap and Fiscal Stance: is the EC estimation of the NAWRU too sensitive to be reliable?," MPRA Paper 73762, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2016.
    29. Agustín Maravall & Ana del Río, 2001. "Time Aggregation and the Hodrick-Prescott Filter," Working Papers 0108, Banco de España.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Violaine Faubert, 2019. "Why Has Labour Market Participation Not Fully Recovered in Ireland since the Recession?," European Economy - Economic Briefs 051, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Mellár, Tamás & Németh, Kristóf, 2018. "A kibocsátási rés becslése többváltozós állapottérmodellekben. Szuperhiszterézis és további empirikus eredmények [Estimating output gap in multivariate state space models. Super-hysteresis and furt," Közgazdasági Szemle (Economic Review - monthly of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences), Közgazdasági Szemle Alapítvány (Economic Review Foundation), vol. 0(6), pages 557-591.
    2. Jonas Dovern & Christopher Zuber, 2020. "Recessions and Potential Output: Disentangling Measurement Errors, Supply Shocks, and Hysteresis Effects," Scandinavian Journal of Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 122(4), pages 1431-1466, October.
    3. Ademmer, Martin & Boysen-Hogrefe, Jens & Carstensen, Kai & Hauber, Philipp & Jannsen, Nils & Kooths, Stefan & Rossian, Thies & Stolzenburg, Ulrich, 2019. "Schätzung von Produktionspotenzial und -lücke: Eine Analyse des EU-Verfahrens und mögliche Verbesserungen," Open Access Publications from Kiel Institute for the World Economy 193965, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW).
    4. Marko Melolinna & Máté Tóth, 2019. "Output gaps, inflation and financial cycles in the UK," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 56(3), pages 1039-1070, March.
    5. Tommaso Proietti & Marco Fioramanti & Cecilia Frale & Libero Monteforte, 2020. "A Systemic Approach to Estimating the Output Gap for the Italian Economy," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 62(3), pages 465-493, September.
    6. Ademmer, Martin & Boysen-Hogrefe, Jens & Carstensen, Kai & Hauber, Philipp & Jannsen, Nils & Kooths, Stefan & Rossian, Thies & Stolzenburg, Ulrich, 2019. "Schätzung von Produktionspotenzial und -lücke: Eine Analyse des EU-Verfahrens und mögliche Verbesserungen," Kieler Beiträge zur Wirtschaftspolitik 19, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    7. Lorenzo Burlon & Paolo D'Imperio, 2019. "The euro-area output gap through the lens of a DSGE model," Questioni di Economia e Finanza (Occasional Papers) 477, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    8. Sariola, Mikko, 2019. "An unobserved components model for Finland – Estimates of potential output and NAWRU," BoF Economics Review 2/2019, Bank of Finland.
    9. Fioramanti, Marco & Waldmann, Robert J., 2017. "The Econometrics of the EU Fiscal Governance: is the European Commission methodology still adequate?," MPRA Paper 81858, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Alex Durand, 2005. "Le chômage structurel dans une petite économie ouverte. Application au Luxembourg," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 169(3), pages 105-126.
    11. Guido Bulligan & Lorenzo Burlon & Davide Delle Monache & Andrea Silvestrini, 2019. "Real and financial cycles: estimates using unobserved component models for the Italian economy," Statistical Methods & Applications, Springer;Società Italiana di Statistica, vol. 28(3), pages 541-569, September.
    12. Odile Chagny & Jörg Döpke, 2001. "Measures of the Output Gap in the Euro-Zone: An Empirical Assessment of Selected Methods," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(3), pages 310-332.
    13. Iancu, Aurel & Olteanu, Dan, 2015. "Fiscal Consolidation by Austerity and EU Surveillance Policies," Working Papers of National Institute for Economic Research 151209, Institutul National de Cercetari Economice (INCE).
    14. Claudio Borio & Marco Jacopo Lombardi & Fabrizio Zampolli, 2016. "Fiscal sustainability and the financial cycle," BIS Working Papers 552, Bank for International Settlements.
    15. Fioramanti, Marco, 2016. "Potential Output, Output Gap and Fiscal Stance: is the EC estimation of the NAWRU too sensitive to be reliable?," MPRA Paper 73762, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Sep 2016.
    16. Tommaso Proietti, 2009. "Structural Time Series Models for Business Cycle Analysis," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Terence C. Mills & Kerry Patterson (ed.), Palgrave Handbook of Econometrics, chapter 9, pages 385-433, Palgrave Macmillan.
    17. Cécile Denis & Kieran Mc Morrow & Werner Röger, 2002. "Production function approach to calculating potential growth and output gaps - estimates for the EU Member States and the US," European Economy - Economic Papers 2008 - 2015 176, Directorate General Economic and Financial Affairs (DG ECFIN), European Commission.
    18. Andreas Billmeier, 2009. "Ghostbusting: which output gap really matters?," International Economics and Economic Policy, Springer, vol. 6(4), pages 391-419, December.
    19. Burlon, Lorenzo & D’Imperio, Paolo, 2020. "Reliable real-time estimates of the euro-area output gap," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 64(C).
    20. R. Barrell & D. Karim & C. Macchiarelli, 2020. "Towards an understanding of credit cycles: do all credit booms cause crises?," The European Journal of Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(10), pages 978-993, July.

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eso:journl:v:50:y:2019:i:1:p:5-34. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Aedin Doris (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.esr.ie .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.