IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/rfa/aefjnl/v6y2019i3p58-70.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Estimating the Potential Output and Output Gap of Ghana

Author

Listed:
  • Joseph Atta-Mensah
  • Sawuya Nakijoba

Abstract

This paper focuses on the estimation of the potential output of Ghana. Potential output or its derivative the output gap are not observable. However, ¡°potential output¡± is a powerful conceptual tool that guides analysts and policymakers in gauging whether the current observed economic activity is sustainable and how much of it is greater than or less than potential. Based on Ghanaian GDP annual data from 1960 ¨C 2017, the paper estimates potential output and output gaps using the following methodology: linear time trends, Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter trends, multivariate HP filter trends, and a production function model. The results show that estimates of the potential output and output gaps are model-dependent as estimates vary from one methodology to the other. The paper recommends that policymakers should not mechanically choose a model to estimate output gap. For the avoidance of costly policy mistakes, the choice of the model should be complemented with sound judgement based on a set of pertinent economic information.

Suggested Citation

  • Joseph Atta-Mensah & Sawuya Nakijoba, 2019. "Estimating the Potential Output and Output Gap of Ghana," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(3), pages 58-70, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:rfa:aefjnl:v:6:y:2019:i:3:p:58-70
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://redfame.com/journal/index.php/aef/article/view/3958/4384
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://redfame.com/journal/index.php/aef/article/view/3958
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    2. Guy Debelle & Douglas Laxton, 1997. "Is the Phillips Curve Really a Curve? Some Evidence for Canada, the United Kingdom, and the United States," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 44(2), pages 249-282, June.
    3. de Brouwer, Gordon & Ericsson, Neil R, 1998. "Modeling Inflation in Australia," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 433-449, October.
    4. Matthew D. Shapiro & Mark W. Watson, 1988. "Sources of Business Cycle Fluctuations," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1988, Volume 3, pages 111-156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. Harvey, A C & Jaeger, A, 1993. "Detrending, Stylized Facts and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 231-247, July-Sept.
    6. Patrick Blagrave & Mr. Roberto Garcia-Saltos & Mr. Douglas Laxton & Fan Zhang, 2015. "A Simple Multivariate Filter for Estimating Potential Output," IMF Working Papers 2015/079, International Monetary Fund.
    7. 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.
    8. Guay, A & St-Amant, P, 1996. "Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Working Papers-Department of Finance Canada 1996-2, Department of Finance Canada.
    9. Lynne Cockerell & Bill Russell, 1995. "Australian Wage and Price Inflation: 1971-1994," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9509, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    10. Beveridge, Stephen & Nelson, Charles R., 1981. "A new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the `business cycle'," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 151-174.
    11. Enrique Alberola & Ángel Estrada & Daniel Santabárbara, 2013. "Growth beyond imbalances. Sustainable growth rates and output gap reassessment," Working Papers 1313, Banco de España.
    12. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1993. "Low frequency filtering and real business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 207-231.
    13. Watson, Mark W., 1986. "Univariate detrending methods with stochastic trends," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 49-75, July.
    14. Ali Alichi, 2015. "A New Methodology for Estimating the Output Gap in the United States," IMF Working Papers 2015/144, International Monetary Fund.
    15. Gordon de Brouwer, 1998. "Estimating Output Gaps," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9809, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    16. Chantal Dupasquier & Alain Guay & Pierre St-Amant, 1997. "A Comparison of Alternative Methodologies for Estimating Potential Output and the Output Gap," Staff Working Papers 97-5, Bank of Canada.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Pierre St-Amant & Simon van Norden, 1997. "Measurement of the Output Gap: A Discussion of Recent Research at the Bank of Canada," Technical Reports 79, Bank of Canada.
    2. René Lalonde & Jennifer Page & Pierre St-Amant, 1998. "Une nouvelle méthode d'estimation de l'écart de production et son application aux États-Unis, au Canada et à l'Allemagne," Staff Working Papers 98-21, Bank of Canada.
    3. Dupasquier, Chantal & Guay, Alain & St-Amant, Pierre, 1999. "A Survey of Alternative Methodologies for Estimating Potential Output and the Output Gap," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 577-595, July.
    4. Zsolt Darvas & Gábor Vadas, 2003. "Univariate Potential Output Estimations for Hungary," MNB Working Papers 2003/8, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).
    5. Vashchelyuk, N.V. (Ващелюк, Н.В.) & Zubarev, Andrey (Зубарев, Андрей) & Trunin, Pavel (Трунин, Павел), 2016. "Determination of the Output Gap for the Russian Economy [Определение Разрыва Выпуска Для Российской Экономики]," Working Papers 2137, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration.
    6. Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev & Sergey Drobyshevsky & Maria Kazakova & Michael Alexeev, 2016. "Decomposition of Russia's GDP Growth Rates," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 167P, pages 123-123.
    7. Maral Kichian, 1999. "Measuring Potential Output within a State-Space Framework," Staff Working Papers 99-9, Bank of Canada.
    8. Martha Misas & Enrique López, 1999. "El producto potencial en Colombia: una estimación bajo var estructural," Coyuntura Económica, Fedesarrollo, September.
    9. Gregory, Allan W. & Smith, Gregor W., 1996. "Measuring business cycles with business-cycle models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 20(6-7), pages 1007-1025.
    10. Gordon de Brouwer, 1998. "Estimating Output Gaps," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9809, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Athanasios Orphanides & Simon van Norden, 2002. "The Unreliability of Output-Gap Estimates in Real Time," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(4), pages 569-583, November.
    12. S. Adnan H. A. S. Bukhari & Safdar Ullah Khan, 2008. "Estimating Output Gap for Pakistan Economy: Structural and Statistical Approaches," SBP Research Bulletin, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department, vol. 4, pages 31-60.
    13. Andrew Rennison, 2003. "Comparing Alternative Output-Gap Estimators: A Monte Carlo Approach," Staff Working Papers 03-8, Bank of Canada.
    14. Velimir Šonje & Igeta Vrbanc, 2000. "Measuring the Similarities of Economic Developments in Central Europe: A Correlation between the Business Cycles of Germany, Hungary, the Czech Republic and Croatia," Working Papers 3, The Croatian National Bank, Croatia.
    15. Martha Misas & Enrique López, 2000. "La Utilización De La Capacidad Instalada De La Industria En Colombia: Un Nuevo Enfoque," Revista ESPE - Ensayos Sobre Política Económica, Banco de la República, vol. 18(38), pages 5-44, December.
    16. Alain Guay & Pierre Saint-Amant, 2005. "Do the Hodrick-Prescott and Baxter-King Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 77, pages 133-155.
    17. Angelica E. Njuguna & Stephen N. Karingi & Mwangi S. Kimenyi, 2005. "Measuring Potential Output and Output Gap and Macroeconomic Policy: The Case of Kenya," Working papers 2005-45, University of Connecticut, Department of Economics.
    18. Chantal Dupasquier & Alain Guay & Pierre St-Amant, 1997. "A Comparison of Alternative Methodologies for Estimating Potential Output and the Output Gap," Staff Working Papers 97-5, Bank of Canada.
    19. Alain Guay & Pierre St-Amant, 1996. "Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Technical Reports 78, Bank of Canada.
    20. Leo Butler, 1996. "The Bank of Canada's New Quarterly Porjection Model Part 4 : A Semi- Structural Method to Estimate Potential Output : Combining Economic Theory with a Time-Series Filter," Technical Reports 77, Bank of Canada.

    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:rfa:aefjnl:v:6:y:2019:i:3:p:58-70. 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: Redfame publishing (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cepflch.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.