IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pri/cepsud/110.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?

Author

Listed:
  • Christopher A. Sims

    (Princeton University and NBER)

  • Tao Zha

    (Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta)

Abstract

A multivariate model, identifying monetary policy and allowing for simultaneity and regime switching in coefficients and variances, is confronted with US data since 1959. The best fit is with a version that allows time variation in structural disturbance variances only. Among versions that allow for changes in equation coefficients also, the best fit is for a one that allows coefficients to change only in the monetary policy rule. That version allows switching among three main regimes and one rarely and briefly occurring regime. The three main regimes correspond roughly to periods when most observers believe that monetary policy actually differed, but the differences among regimes are not large enough to account for the rise, then decline, in inflation of the 1970s and 1980s. In versions that insist on changes in the policy rule, the estimates imply monetary targeting was central in the early 1980s, but also important sporadically in the 1970s.

Suggested Citation

  • Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2005. "Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?," Working Papers 92, Princeton University, Department of Economics, Center for Economic Policy Studies..
    • Handle: RePEc:pri:cepsud:110
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://gceps.princeton.edu/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/110sims.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 2004. "MCMC method for Markov mixture simultaneous-equation models: a note," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2004-15, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    2. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2006. "Why Inflation Rose and Fell: Policy-Makers' Beliefs and U. S. Postwar Stabilization Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 121(3), pages 867-901.
    3. Leeper, Eric M. & Zha, Tao, 2003. "Modest policy interventions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1673-1700, November.
    4. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    5. Thomas A. Lubik & Frank Schorfheide, 2004. "Testing for Indeterminacy: An Application to U.S. Monetary Policy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 94(1), pages 190-217, March.
    6. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
    7. John Geweke, 1999. "Using simulation methods for bayesian econometric models: inference, development,and communication," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 18(1), pages 1-73.
    8. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "Drift and Volatilities: Monetary Policies and Outcomes in the Post WWII U.S," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 262-302, April.
    9. Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2003. "Likelihood preserving normalization in multiple equation models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 114(2), pages 329-347, June.
    10. Lawrence J. Christiano & Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 2005. "Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 113(1), pages 1-45, February.
    11. Eric M. Leeper & Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1996. "What Does Monetary Policy Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(2), pages 1-78.
    12. Thomas Sargent & Noah Williams & Tao Zha, 2006. "Shocks and Government Beliefs: The Rise and Fall of American Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1193-1224, September.
    13. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    14. Sims, Christopher A & Zha, Tao, 1998. "Bayesian Methods for Dynamic Multivariate Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 949-968, November.
    15. James D. Hamilton & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2007. "Normalization in Econometrics," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(2-4), pages 221-252.
    16. Cooley, Thomas F & LeRoy, Stephen F & Raymon, Neil, 1984. "Econometric Policy Evaluation: Note," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 74(3), pages 467-470, June.
    17. Troy Davig & Eric M. Leeper, 2007. "Generalizing the Taylor Principle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 607-635, June.
    18. Litterman, Robert B, 1986. "Forecasting with Bayesian Vector Autoregressions-Five Years of Experience," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(1), pages 25-38, January.
    19. John Geweke, 1999. "Using Simulation Methods for Bayesian Econometric Models," Computing in Economics and Finance 1999 832, Society for Computational Economics.
    20. Robertson, John C & Tallman, Ellis W, 2001. "Improving Federal-Funds Rate Forecasts in VAR Models Used for Policy Analysis," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 19(3), pages 324-330, July.
    21. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    22. Luca Gambetti & Evi Pappa & Fabio Canova, 2008. "The Structural Dynamics of U.S. Output and Inflation: What Explains the Changes?," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 40(2-3), pages 369-388, March.
    23. Sims, Christopher A., 2003. "Implications of rational inattention," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 665-690, April.
    24. Chib, Siddhartha, 1996. "Calculating posterior distributions and modal estimates in Markov mixture models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 75(1), pages 79-97, November.
    25. Arthur F. Burns, 1987. "The Anguish of Central Banking," Palgrave Macmillan Books, in: Pierluigi Ciocca (ed.), Money and the Economy: Central Bankers’ Views, chapter 7, pages 147-166, Palgrave Macmillan.
    26. Henry W. Chappell, Jr. & Rob Roy McGregor & Todd A. Vermilyea, 2005. "Committee Decisions on Monetary Policy: Evidence from Historical Records of the Federal Open Market Committee," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262033305, April.
    27. Rochelle M. Edge, 2000. "Time-to-build, time-to-plan, habit-persistence, and the liquidity effect," International Finance Discussion Papers 673, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    28. Chib S. & Jeliazkov I., 2001. "Marginal Likelihood From the Metropolis-Hastings Output," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 96, pages 270-281, March.
    29. Jean Boivin & Marc P. Giannoni, 2006. "Has Monetary Policy Become More Effective?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 88(3), pages 445-462, August.
    30. Arthur F. Burns, 1987. "The anguish of central banking," Federal Reserve Bulletin, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.), issue Sep, pages 687-698.
    31. Litterman, Robert, 1986. "Forecasting with Bayesian vector autoregressions -- Five years of experience : Robert B. Litterman, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 4 (1986) 25-38," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 497-498.
    32. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, April.
    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. Sims, Christopher A. & Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2008. "Methods for inference in large multiple-equation Markov-switching models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 255-274, October.
    2. Leeper, Eric M. & Zha, Tao, 2003. "Modest policy interventions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1673-1700, November.
    3. Benoit Mojon, 2007. "Monetary policy, output composition and the Great Moderation," Working Paper Series WP-07-07, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    4. Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2005. "Markov-switching structural vector autoregressions: theory and application," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2005-27, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    5. Francesco Bianchi, 2013. "Regime Switches, Agents' Beliefs, and Post-World War II U.S. Macroeconomic Dynamics," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 80(2), pages 463-490.
    6. Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2010. "Structural Vector Autoregressions: Theory of Identification and Algorithms for Inference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 665-696.
    7. Eric M. Leeper & Tao Zha, 2002. "Empirical analysis of policy interventions," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    8. Stelios D. Bekiros & Alessia Paccagnini, 2016. "Policy‐Oriented Macroeconomic Forecasting with Hybrid DGSE and Time‐Varying Parameter VAR Models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 35(7), pages 613-632, November.
    9. Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2003. "A Gibbs sampler for structural vector autoregressions," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 28(2), pages 349-366, November.
    10. Kostas Mavromatis, 2018. "U.S. Monetary Regimes and Optimal Monetary Policy in the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(7), pages 1441-1478, October.
    11. Waggoner, Daniel F. & Wu, Hongwei & Zha, Tao, 2016. "Striated Metropolis–Hastings sampler for high-dimensional models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 192(2), pages 406-420.
    12. Kostas Mavromatis, 2018. "U.S. Monetary Regimes and Optimal Monetary Policy in the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(7), pages 1441-1478, October.
    13. Francesco Bianchi & Leonardo Melosi, 2014. "Dormant Shocks and Fiscal Virtue," NBER Macroeconomics Annual, University of Chicago Press, vol. 28(1), pages 1-46.
    14. Lhuissier, Stéphane, 2018. "The Regime-Switching Volatility Of Euro Area Business Cycles," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 22(2), pages 426-469, March.
    15. Satoshi Tezuka & Yoichi Matsubayashi, 2018. "Credit Spread, Financial Market and Real Activities under Financial Instability: Empirical Evidence with MS-SBVAR," Discussion Papers 1812, Graduate School of Economics, Kobe University.
    16. Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2012. "Confronting model misspecification in macroeconomics," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 171(2), pages 167-184.
    17. Lhuissier, Stéphane & Zabelina, Margarita, 2015. "On the stability of Calvo-style price-setting behavior," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 77-95.
    18. Farmer, Roger E.A. & Waggoner, Daniel F. & Zha, Tao, 2011. "Minimal state variable solutions to Markov-switching rational expectations models," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(12), pages 2150-2166.
    19. Daniel F. Waggoner & Hongwei Wu & Tao Zha, 2014. "The Dynamic Striated Metropolis-Hastings Sampler for High-Dimensional Models," FRB Atlanta Working Paper 2014-21, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta.
    20. Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez, 2008. "How Structural Are Structural Parameters?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2007, Volume 22, pages 83-137, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Counterfactuals; Lucas critique; policy rule; monetary targeting; simultaneity; volatility; model comparison; United States;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy
    • E47 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

    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:pri:cepsud:110. 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: Bobray Bordelon (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/ceprius.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.