IRTG1792DP2018 022
Learning from Errors: The case of monetary and fiscal policy regimes
Andreas Tryphonides
Abstract
The New Keynesian theory of inflation determination has been under scrutiny
due to identification issues, which rather have to do with the mechanism of inflation determination
at its core (i.e. Cochrane (2011)). Moreover, similar identification problems
arise in the case of fiscal inflation (see for example Leeper and Leith (2016), Leeper and
Li (2017) and Leeper and Walker (2012)). This paper makes a positive contribution.
We argue that statements about observational equivalence stem from referring to the
equilibrium path, while this should not be our primary source of identifying restrictions.
Moreover, policy identification (or lack thereof) relies on assumptions on the underlying
shock structure, which is unobservable. We instead extract shocks using heterogeneous
uncertain restrictions and external datasets, that is, we learn from errors. We are then
able to recover deep and policy parameters irrespective of the prevailing equilibrium. We
provide time varying evidence on the efficacy of policy in stabilizing the US economy and
on the time varying plausibility of Ricardian versus non-Ricardian price determination.
Results are work in progress.
Keywords:
Monetary and fiscal policy, Price Determination, Identification, Learning from errors
JEL classification:
C11, C13, E62, E63