IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedmqr/y1990isprp19-37nv.14no.2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vector autoregression evidence on monetarism: another look at the robustness debate

Author

Listed:
  • Richard M. Todd

Abstract

This paper is a case study of the use of vector autoregression (VAR) models to test economic theories. It focuses on the work of Christopher A. Sims, who in 1980 found that relationships in economic data generated by a small VAR model were inconsistent with those implied by a simple form of monetarist theory. The paper describes the work of researchers who criticized Sims' results as not robust and Sims' response to these critics. The paper reexamines all of this work by estimating hundreds of variations of Sims' model. The paper concludes that both Sims and his critics are right: Sims' conclusion about monetarism is robust, but some of his other statistical results are not. In general, the paper concludes that VAR models can be used to test theories, but that any relationships they uncover in the data must be carefully checked for robustness.

Suggested Citation

  • Richard M. Todd, 1990. "Vector autoregression evidence on monetarism: another look at the robustness debate," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 14(Spr), pages 19-37.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedmqr:y:1990:i:spr:p:19-37:n:v.14no.2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1422.html
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://minneapolisfed.org/research/qr/qr1422.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Runkle, David E, 1987. "Vector Autoregressions and Reality," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 5(4), pages 437-442, October.
    2. Roberds, William & Whiteman, Charles H, 1992. "Monetary Aggregates as Monetary Targets: A Statistical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 24(2), pages 141-161, May.
    3. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1987. "Temporal aggregation and structural inference in macroeconomics," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 63-130, January.
    4. Cooley, Thomas F. & Leroy, Stephen F., 1985. "Atheoretical macroeconometrics: A critique," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 283-308, November.
    5. Bernanke, Ben S., 1986. "Alternative explanations of the money-income correlation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 49-99, January.
    6. David E. Runkle, 1987. "Vector autoregressions and reality," Staff Report 107, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    7. Spencer, David E, 1989. "Does Money Matter? The Robustness of Evidence from Vector Autoregressions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 21(4), pages 442-454, November.
    8. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    9. Runkle, David E, 1987. "Vector Autoregressions and Reality: Reply," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 5(4), pages 454-454, October.
    10. McCallum, Bennett T., 1983. "A reconsideration of Sims' evidence concerning monetarism," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 13(2-3), pages 167-171.
    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. Kamas, Linda, 1995. "Monetary policy and inflation under the crawling peg: Some evidence from VARs for Colombia," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 46(1), pages 145-161, February.
    2. Ansari, M. I., 1996. "Monetary vs. fiscal policy: Some evidence from vector autoregression for India," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(4), pages 677-698.
    3. Phillips, Peter C. B., 1998. "Impulse response and forecast error variance asymptotics in nonstationary VARs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1-2), pages 21-56.
    4. Mohammed I Ansari & Ira N Gang, 1999. "Liberalization Policy: ‘Fits & Starts’ or Gradual Change in India," Comparative Economic Studies, Palgrave Macmillan;Association for Comparative Economic Studies, vol. 41(4), pages 23-46, December.
    5. Ali F. Darrat & Marc C. Chopin & Ross N. Dickens, 2001. "The Dollar and U.S. Inflation: Some Evidence from a Vecm Process," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 45(2), pages 3-12, October.
    6. Kandil, Magda, 2005. "Money, interest, and prices: Some international evidence," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 14(2), pages 129-147.
    7. Gerald A. Carlino & Robert H. DeFina, 1997. "The differential regional effects of monetary policy: evidence from the U.S. States," Working Papers 97-12, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    8. Vilasuso, Jon, 1999. "The Liquidity Effect and the Operating Procedure of the Federal Reserve," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 443-461, July.
    9. R. W. Hafer & Ali M. Kutan, 2002. "Detrending and the Money‐Output Link: International Evidence," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 69(1), pages 159-174, July.
    10. Peter C.B. Phillips, 1992. "Bayes Methods for Trending Multiple Time Series with an Empirical Application to the US Economy," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1025, Cowles Foundation for Research in Economics, Yale University.
    11. Choi, Jae-Young & Ratti, Ronald A., 2000. "The Predictive Power of Alternative Indicators of Monetary Policy," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(4), pages 581-610, October.

    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. Prof. Neil D. Karunaratne, 2002. "Microeconomic Shocks, Depreciation and Inflation: an Australian Perspective," Discussion Papers Series 298, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    2. Troug, Haytem & Murray, Matt, 2015. "The Effects of Asymmetric Shocks in Oil Prices on the Performance of the Libyan Economy," MPRA Paper 68705, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. H. Atesoglu & Donald Dutkowsky, 1992. "The changing effect of money on aggregate output in the u.s," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 128(2), pages 221-236, June.
    4. Galadima, Mukhtar Danladi & Aminu, Abubakar Wambai, 2019. "Shocks effects of macroeconomic variables on natural gas consumption in Nigeria: Structural VAR with sign restrictions," Energy Policy, Elsevier, vol. 125(C), pages 135-144.
    5. Ramon Moreno, 1992. "Macroeconomic shocks and business cycles in Australia," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 34-52.
    6. Ali F. Darrat & Marc C. Chopin & Ross N. Dickens, 2001. "The Dollar and U.S. Inflation: Some Evidence from a Vecm Process," The American Economist, Sage Publications, vol. 45(2), pages 3-12, October.
    7. Ireland, Peter N., 2004. "A method for taking models to the data," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(6), pages 1205-1226, March.
    8. Gediminas Adomavicius & Jesse Bockstedt & Alok Gupta, 2012. "Modeling Supply-Side Dynamics of IT Components, Products, and Infrastructure: An Empirical Analysis Using Vector Autoregression," Information Systems Research, INFORMS, vol. 23(2), pages 397-417, June.
    9. Ericsson, Neil R & Hendry, David F & Mizon, Grayham E, 1998. "Exogeneity, Cointegration, and Economic Policy Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 370-387, October.
    10. Mark Wheeler, 1991. "Causality in the United Kingdom: Results from an Open Economy," Eastern Economic Journal, Eastern Economic Association, vol. 17(4), pages 439-449, Oct-Dec.
    11. Richard M. Todd, 1988. "Implementing Bayesian vector autoregressions," Working Papers 384, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    12. Jin, Jang C., 2006. "Openness, growth, and inflation: Evidence from South Korea before the economic crisis," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 17(4), pages 738-757, October.
    13. Masih, Abul M. M. & Masih, Rumi, 1996. "Empirical tests to discern the dynamic causal chain in macroeconomic activity: new evidence from Thailand and Malaysia based on a multivariate cointegration/vector error-correction modeling approach," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 18(5), pages 531-560, October.
    14. Apergis, Nicholas, 1997. "Domestic and eurocurrency yields: Any exchange rate link? Evidence from a VAR model," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 19(1), pages 41-49, February.
    15. Masih, Rumi & Masih, Abul M. M., 1996. "Macroeconomic activity dynamics and Granger causality: New evidence from a small developing economy based on a vector error-correction modelling analysis," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 13(3), pages 407-426, July.
    16. John D. Levendis, 2018. "Time Series Econometrics," Springer Texts in Business and Economics, Springer, number 978-3-319-98282-3, December.
    17. Hoag, John H. & Wheeler, Mark, 1996. "Oil price shocks and employment: the case of Ohio coal mining," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(3), pages 211-220, July.
    18. Nathan S. Balke & Kenneth M. Emery, 1994. "The federal funds rate as an indicator of monetary policy: evidence from the 1980s," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas, issue Q I, pages 1-15.
    19. Dagher, Leila & El Hariri, Sadika, 2013. "The impact of global oil price shocks on the Lebanese stock market," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 63(C), pages 366-374.
    20. James L. Butkiewicz & Matthew A. Martin, 2003. "Agricultural Investment and the Interwar Business Cycle," Working Papers 03-10, University of Delaware, Department of Economics.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Vector autoregression; Monetary theory;

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    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:fip:fedmqr:y:1990:i:spr:p:19-37:n:v.14no.2. 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: Kate Hansel (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cfrbmus.html .

    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.