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What Can Time‐Series Regressions Tell Us About Policy Counterfactuals?

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  • Alisdair McKay
  • Christian K. Wolf

Abstract

We show that, in a general family of linearized structural macroeconomic models, knowledge of the empirically estimable causal effects of contemporaneous and news shocks to the prevailing policy rule is sufficient to construct counterfactuals under alternative policy rules. If the researcher is willing to postulate a loss function, our results furthermore allow her to recover an optimal policy rule for that loss. Under our assumptions, the derived counterfactuals and optimal policies are robust to the Lucas critique. We then discuss strategies for applying these insights when only a limited amount of empirical causal evidence on policy shock transmission is available.

Suggested Citation

  • Alisdair McKay & Christian K. Wolf, 2023. "What Can Time‐Series Regressions Tell Us About Policy Counterfactuals?," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 91(5), pages 1695-1725, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:wly:emetrp:v:91:y:2023:i:5:p:1695-1725
    DOI: 10.3982/ECTA21045
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    2. Georgiadis, Georgios & Müller, Gernot J. & Schumann, Ben, 2024. "Global risk and the dollar," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 144(C).
    3. Max Breitenlechner & Martin Geiger & Mathias Klein, 2024. "The Fiscal Channel of Monetary Policy," Working Papers 2024-07, Faculty of Economics and Statistics, Universität Innsbruck.
    4. Régis Barnichon & Geert Mesters, 2020. "A Sufficient Statistics Approach for Macro Policy Evaluation," Working Papers 1171, Barcelona School of Economics.
    5. Christian K. Wolf, 2023. "Fiscal Stimulus and the Systematic Response of Monetary Policy," AEA Papers and Proceedings, American Economic Association, vol. 113, pages 388-393, May.
    6. Régis Barnichon & Geert Mesters, 2023. "Evaluating policy institutions -150 years of US monetary policy-," Economics Working Papers 1873, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra.
    7. Madeira, Carlos & Salazar, Leonardo, 2023. "The impact of monetary policy on a labor market with heterogeneous workers: The case of Chile," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 4(2).
    8. Wataru Miyamoto & Thuy Lan Nguyen & Dmitry Sergeyev, 2023. "How Oil Shocks Propagate: Evidence on the Monetary Policy Channel," Working Paper Series 2024-06, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco.
    9. Eric T. Swanson, 2024. "The Macroeconomic Effects of the Federal Reserve’s Conventional and Unconventional Monetary Policies," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 72(3), pages 1152-1184, September.
    10. Gökhan Ider & Alexander Kriwoluzky & Frederik Kurcz & Ben Schumann, 2024. "Friend, Not Foe - Energy Prices and European Monetary Policy," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 2089, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    11. Endong Wang, 2024. "Structural counterfactual analysis in macroeconomics: theory and inference," Papers 2409.09577, arXiv.org.

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    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E61 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Policy Objectives; Policy Designs and Consistency; Policy Coordination

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