IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/tin/wpaper/20090074.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Visualizing the Invisible: Estimating the New Keynesian Output Gap via a Bayesian Approach

Author

Listed:
  • Tim Willems

    (University of Amsterdam)

Abstract

As both the natural level of output and the New Keynesian output gap cannot be observed in practice, there is quite some debate on the question how these variables look like in practice. Rather than taking the standard approach of using a time trend or the HP-filter to obtain estimates of these two objects, this paper takes a theoretically more sound route by separating trend from cycle via Bayesian estimation of a New Keynesian model, augmented with an unobserved components model for output. This delivers us with model consistent estimates of both the natural level of output and the New Keynesian output gap. These estimates are then compared with the dominant output gap proxies used in the literature. It turns out that the benefits of using the model-based approach taken in this paper mainly emerge in real time, thereby making this method potentially useful for the conduct of monetary policy.

Suggested Citation

  • Tim Willems, 2009. "Visualizing the Invisible: Estimating the New Keynesian Output Gap via a Bayesian Approach," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 09-074/2, Tinbergen Institute, revised 26 Mar 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:tin:wpaper:20090074
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://papers.tinbergen.nl/09074.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. 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.
    2. 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.
    3. 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.
    4. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    5. Frank Schorfheide, 2005. "Learning and Monetary Policy Shifts," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 392-419, April.
    6. Frank Schorfheide, 2008. "DSGE model-based estimation of the New Keynesian Phillips curve," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Fall), pages 397-433.
    7. Clark, Peter K., 1989. "Trend reversion in real output and unemployment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 15-32, January.
    8. Neiss, Katharine S. & Nelson, Edward, 2003. "The Real-Interest-Rate Gap As An Inflation Indicator," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 7(2), pages 239-262, April.
    9. James A. Kahn & Mark Bils, 2000. "What Inventory Behavior Tells Us about Business Cycles," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 458-481, 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. Ireland, Peter N., 2001. "Sticky-price models of the business cycle: Specification and stability," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 3-18, February.
    12. Marco Del Negro & Frank Schorfheide, 2004. "Priors from General Equilibrium Models for VARS," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 45(2), pages 643-673, May.
    13. Sbordone, Argia M., 2002. "Prices and unit labor costs: a new test of price stickiness," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 265-292, March.
    14. 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.
    15. King, Robert G & Watson, Mark W, 1996. "Money, Prices, Interest Rates and the Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 35-53, February.
    16. Frank Smets & Rafael Wouters, 2007. "Shocks and Frictions in US Business Cycles: A Bayesian DSGE Approach," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 97(3), pages 586-606, June.
    17. Lippi, Francesco & Neri, Stefano, 2007. "Information variables for monetary policy in an estimated structural model of the euro area," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(4), pages 1256-1270, May.
    18. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & David Lopez-Salido, J., 2005. "Robustness of the estimates of the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1107-1118, September.
    19. Watson, Mark W., 1986. "Univariate detrending methods with stochastic trends," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 49-75, July.
    20. Linde, Jesper, 2005. "Estimating New-Keynesian Phillips curves: A full information maximum likelihood approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1135-1149, September.
    21. Gerlach, Stefan & Svensson, Lars E. O., 2003. "Money and inflation in the euro area: A case for monetary indicators?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1649-1672, November.
    22. Frank Smets, 2002. "Output gap uncertainty: Does it matter for the Taylor rule?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 27(1), pages 113-129.
    23. Rotemberg, Julio J. & Woodford, Michael, 1999. "The cyclical behavior of prices and costs," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 16, pages 1051-1135, Elsevier.
    24. Katharine Neiss & Edward Nelson, 2002. "Inflation dynamics, marginal cost, and the output gap: evidence from three countries," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    25. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    26. Planas, Christophe & Rossi, Alessandro & Fiorentini, Gabriele, 2008. "Bayesian Analysis of the Output Gap," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 18-32, January.
    27. Cho, Seonghoon & Moreno, Antonio, 2006. "A Small-Sample Study of the New-Keynesian Macro Model," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 38(6), pages 1461-1481, September.
    28. Lawrence J. Christiano & Michele Boldrin & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2001. "Habit Persistence, Asset Returns, and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 149-166, March.
    29. 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.
    30. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    31. Weber, Christian E, 1995. "Cyclical Output, Cyclical Unemployment, and Okun's Coefficient: A New Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 433-445, Oct.-Dec..
    32. 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.
    33. Harvey, Andrew C. & Trimbur, Thomas M. & Van Dijk, Herman K., 2007. "Trends and cycles in economic time series: A Bayesian approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 140(2), pages 618-649, October.
    34. Sbordone, Argia M., 2005. "Do expected future marginal costs drive inflation dynamics?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1183-1197, September.
    35. Harvey, A C, 1985. "Trends and Cycles in Macroeconomic Time Series," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(3), pages 216-227, June.
    36. Rabanal, Pau & Rubio-Ramirez, Juan F., 2005. "Comparing New Keynesian models of the business cycle: A Bayesian approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1151-1166, September.
    37. Jeffrey C. Fuhrer, 2000. "Habit Formation in Consumption and Its Implications for Monetary-Policy Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(3), pages 367-390, June.
    38. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    39. Frank Smets & Raf Wouters, 2003. "An Estimated Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Model of the Euro Area," Journal of the European Economic Association, MIT Press, vol. 1(5), pages 1123-1175, September.
    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. Chalmovianský, Jakub & Němec, Daniel, 2022. "Assessing uncertainty of output gap estimates: Evidence from Visegrad countries," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 116(C).
    2. Daniel Kienzler & Kai D. Schmid, 2014. "Hysteresis in Potential Output and Monetary Policy," Scottish Journal of Political Economy, Scottish Economic Society, vol. 61(4), pages 371-396, September.
    3. Saeed Dehghan Khavari & Seyed Hossein Mirjalili, 2012. "Estimation and Analysis of Output Gap: An Application of Structural Vector Autoregression and Hodrick-Prescott-Fmethods," American Journal of Economics and Business Administration, Science Publications, vol. 4(3), pages 180-189, August.
    4. Kienzler, Daniel & Schmid, Kai Daniel, 2013. "Monetary policy and hysteresis in potential output," University of Tübingen Working Papers in Business and Economics 55, University of Tuebingen, Faculty of Economics and Social Sciences, School of Business and Economics.
    5. Fethi Ogunc & Cagri Sarikaya, 2011. "Gorunmez Ama Hissedilmez Degil : Turkiye'de Cikti Acigi," Central Bank Review, Research and Monetary Policy Department, Central Bank of the Republic of Turkey, vol. 11(2), pages 15-28.

    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. Frank Schorfheide, 2008. "DSGE model-based estimation of the New Keynesian Phillips curve," Economic Quarterly, Federal Reserve Bank of Richmond, vol. 94(Fall), pages 397-433.
    2. Del Negro, Marco & Schorfheide, Frank, 2008. "Forming priors for DSGE models (and how it affects the assessment of nominal rigidities)," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(7), pages 1191-1208, October.
    3. Özer Karagedikli & Troy Matheson & Christie Smith & Shaun P. Vahey, 2010. "RBCs AND DSGEs: THE COMPUTATIONAL APPROACH TO BUSINESS CYCLE THEORY AND EVIDENCE," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 24(1), pages 113-136, February.
    4. 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.
    5. Givens, Gregory E., 2011. "Unemployment insurance in a sticky-price model with worker moral hazard," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 35(8), pages 1192-1214, August.
    6. Marco Del Negro & Frank Schorfheide, 2009. "Monetary Policy Analysis with Potentially Misspecified Models," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 99(4), pages 1415-1450, September.
    7. Franke, Reiner & Jang, Tae-Seok & Sacht, Stephen, 2015. "Moment matching versus Bayesian estimation: Backward-looking behaviour in a New-Keynesian baseline model," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 31(C), pages 126-154.
    8. Givens, Gregory E. & Salemi, Michael K., 2015. "Inferring monetary policy objectives with a partially observed state," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 52(C), pages 190-208.
    9. Andrew T. Levin & Alexei Onatski & John Williams & Noah M. Williams, 2006. "Monetary Policy under Uncertainty in Micro-Founded Macroeconometric Models," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2005, Volume 20, pages 229-312, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    10. Cayen, Jean-Philippe & van Norden, Simon, 2005. "The reliability of Canadian output-gap estimates," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 373-393, December.
    11. Franke, Reiner & Jang, Tae-Seok & Sacht, Stephen, 2011. "Moment matching versus Bayesian estimation: Backward-looking behaviour in the new-Keynesian three-equations model," Economics Working Papers 2011-10, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics.
    12. Carlos Medel, 2017. "Forecasting Chilean inflation with the hybrid new keynesian Phillips curve: globalisation, combination, and accuracy," Journal Economía Chilena (The Chilean Economy), Central Bank of Chile, vol. 20(3), pages 004-050, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Gali, Jordi & Gertler, Mark & David Lopez-Salido, J., 2005. "Robustness of the estimates of the hybrid New Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(6), pages 1107-1118, September.
    15. Cúrdia, Vasco & Ferrero, Andrea & Ng, Ging Cee & Tambalotti, Andrea, 2015. "Has U.S. monetary policy tracked the efficient interest rate?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(C), pages 72-83.
    16. Leith, Campbell & Malley, Jim, 2005. "Estimated general equilibrium models for the evaluation of monetary policy in the US and Europe," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 49(8), pages 2137-2159, November.
    17. McKnight, Stephen & Mihailov, Alexander & Rumler, Fabio, 2020. "Inflation forecasting using the New Keynesian Phillips Curve with a time-varying trend," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 87(C), pages 383-393.
    18. Kim, Insu, 2009. "Dual Wage Rigidities: Theory and Some Evidence," MPRA Paper 21494, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised Mar 2010.
    19. Kuester, Keith & Müller, Gernot J. & Stölting, Sarah, 2009. "Is the New Keynesian Phillips curve flat?," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 103(1), pages 39-41, April.
    20. Fair, Ray C., 2007. "Evaluating Inflation Targeting Using a Macroeconometric Model," Economics - The Open-Access, Open-Assessment E-Journal (2007-2020), Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel), vol. 1, pages 1-52.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Key words: Bayesian estimation; unobserved components model; New Keynesian model; output gap; New Keynesian Phillips curve;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:tin:wpaper:20090074. 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: Tinbergen Office +31 (0)10-4088900 (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/tinbenl.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.