Uncertainty and Unemployment
Uncertainty and Unemployment

Author: Sangyup Choi

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2015-02-23

Total Pages: 26

ISBN-13: 1498356303

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We study the role of uncertainty shocks in explaining unemployment dynamics, separating out the role of aggregate and sectoral channels. Using S&P500 data from the first quarter of 1957 to third quarter of 2014, we construct separate indices to measure aggregate and sectoral uncertainty and compare their effects on the unemployment rate in a standard macroeconomic vector autoregressive (VAR) model. We find that aggregate uncertainty leads to an immediate increase in unemployment, with the impact dissipating within a year. In contrast, sectoral uncertainty has a long-lived impact on unemployment, with the peak impact occurring after two years. The results are consistent with a view that the impact of aggregate uncertainty occurs through a “wait-and-see” mechanism while increased sectoral uncertainty raises unemployment by requiring greater reallocation across sectors.

Unequal We Stand
Unequal We Stand

Author: Jonathan Heathcote

Publisher: DIANE Publishing

Published: 2010-10

Total Pages: 61

ISBN-13: 1437934919

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The authors conducted a systematic empirical study of cross-sectional inequality in the U.S., integrating data from various surveys. The authors follow the mapping suggested by the household budget constraint from individual wages to individual earnings, to household earnings, to disposable income, and, ultimately, to consumption and wealth. They document a continuous and sizable increase in wage inequality over the sample period. Changes in the distribution of hours worked sharpen the rise in earnings inequality before 1982, but mitigate its increase thereafter. Taxes and transfers compress the level of income inequality, especially at the bottom of the distribution, but have little effect on the overall trend. Charts and tables. This is a print-on-demand publication; it is not an original.

Alternative Economic Indicators
Alternative Economic Indicators

Author: C. James Hueng

Publisher: W.E. Upjohn Institute

Published: 2020-09-08

Total Pages: 133

ISBN-13: 0880996765

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Policymakers and business practitioners are eager to gain access to reliable information on the state of the economy for timely decision making. More so now than ever. Traditional economic indicators have been criticized for delayed reporting, out-of-date methodology, and neglecting some aspects of the economy. Recent advances in economic theory, econometrics, and information technology have fueled research in building broader, more accurate, and higher-frequency economic indicators. This volume contains contributions from a group of prominent economists who address alternative economic indicators, including indicators in the financial market, indicators for business cycles, and indicators of economic uncertainty.

Oil Price Uncertainty
Oil Price Uncertainty

Author: Apostolos Serletis

Publisher: World Scientific Publishing Company Incorporated

Published: 2012

Total Pages: 142

ISBN-13: 9789814390675

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The relationship between the price of oil and the level of economic activity is a fundamental issue in macroeconomics. There is an ongoing debate in the literature about whether positive oil price shocks cause recessions in the United States (and other oil-importing countries), and although there exists a vast empirical literature that investigates the effects of oil price shocks, there are relatively few studies that investigate the direct effects of uncertainty about oil prices on the real economy. The book uses recent advances in macroeconomics and financial economics to investigate the effects of oil price shocks and uncertainty about the price of oil on the level of economic activity.

Limits of Floating Exchange Rates
Limits of Floating Exchange Rates

Author: Mr.Sebastian Weber

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2011-02-01

Total Pages: 53

ISBN-13: 1455219002

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A traditional argument in favor of flexible exchange rates is that they insulate output better from real shocks, because the exchange rate can adjust and stabilize demand for domestic goods through expenditure switching. This argument is weakened in models with high foreign currency debt and low exchange rate pass-through to import prices. The present study evaluates the empirical relevance of these two factors. We analyze the transmission of real external shocks to the domestic economy under fixed and flexible exchange rate regimes for a broad sample of countries in a Panel VAR and let the responses vary with foreign currency indebtedness and import structure. We find that flexible exchange rates do not insulate output better from external shocks if the country imports mainly low pass-through goods and can even amplify the output response if foreign indebtedness is high.

Growth Or Glamour?
Growth Or Glamour?

Author: John Y. Campbell

Publisher:

Published: 2005

Total Pages: 66

ISBN-13:

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The cash flows of growth stocks are particularly sensitive to temporary movements in aggregate stock prices (driven by movements in the equity risk premium), while the cash flows of value stocks are particularly sensitive to permanent movements in aggregate stock prices (driven by market-wide shocks to cash flows.) Thus the high betas of growth stocks with the market's discount-rate shocks, and of value stocks with the market's cash-flow shocks, are determined by the cash-flow fundamentals of growth and value companies. Growth stocks are not merely "glamour stocks" whose systematic risks are purely driven by investor sentiment. More generally, accounting measures of firm-level risk have predictive power for firms' betas with market-wide cash flows, and this predictive power arises from the behavior of firms' cash flows. The systematic risks of stocks with similar accounting characteristics are primarily driven by the systematic risks of their fundamentals.

Fiscal Foresight and Information Flows
Fiscal Foresight and Information Flows

Author: Eric M. Leeper

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2012-06-01

Total Pages: 65

ISBN-13: 1475558244

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News - or foresight - about future economic fundamentals can create rational expectations equilibria with non-fundamental representations that pose substantial challenges to econometric efforts to recover the structural shocks to which economic agents react. Using tax policies as a leading example of foresight, simple theory makes transparent the economic behavior and information structures that generate non-fundamental equilibria. Econometric analyses that fail to model foresight will obtain biased estimates of output multipliers for taxes; biases are quantitatively important when two canonical theoretical models are taken as data generating processes. Both the nature of equilibria and the inferences about the effects of anticipated tax changes hinge critically on hypothesized information flows. Different methods for extracting or hypothesizing the information flows are discussed and shown to be alternative techniques for resolving a non-uniqueness problem endemic to moving average representations.

The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks on the UK Economy
The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks on the UK Economy

Author: MissStephanie Denis

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2013-03-08

Total Pages: 46

ISBN-13: 161635562X

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This paper quantifies the economic impact of uncertainty shocks in the UK using data that span the recent Great Recession. We find that uncertainty shocks have a significant impact on economic activity in the UK, depressing industrial production and GDP. The peak impact is felt fairly quickly at around 6-12 months after the shock, and becomes statistically negligible after 18 months. Interestingly, the impact of uncertainty shocks on industrial production in the UK is strikingly similar to that of the US both in terms of the shape and magnitude of the response. However, unemployment in the UK is less affected by uncertainty shocks. Finally, we find that uncertainty shocks can account for about a quarter of the decline in industrial production during the Great Recession.

News Shocks in Open Economies
News Shocks in Open Economies

Author: Mr.Rabah Arezki

Publisher: International Monetary Fund

Published: 2015-09-29

Total Pages: 54

ISBN-13: 1513590766

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This paper explores the effect of news shocks on the current account and other macroeconomic variables using worldwide giant oil discoveries as a directly observable measure of news shocks about future output ? the delay between a discovery and production is on average 4 to 6 years. We first present a two-sector small open economy model in order to predict the responses of macroeconomic aggregates to news of an oil discovery. We then estimate the effects of giant oil discoveries on a large panel of countries. Our empirical estimates are consistent with the predictions of the model. After an oil discovery, the current account and saving rate decline for the first 5 years and then rise sharply during the ensuing years. Investment rises robustly soon after the news arrives, while GDP does not increase until after 5 years. Employment rates fall slightly for a sustained period of time.

A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts
A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts

Author: Dale W. Jorgenson

Publisher: University of Chicago Press

Published: 2007-11-01

Total Pages: 649

ISBN-13: 0226410870

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A New Architecture for the U.S. National Accounts brings together a distinguished group of contributors to initiate the development of a comprehensive and fully integrated set of United States national accounts. The purpose of the new architecture is not only to integrate the existing systems of accounts, but also to identify gaps and inconsistencies and expand and incorporate systems of nonmarket accounts with the core system. Since the United States economy accounts for almost thirty percent of the world economy, it is not surprising that accounting for this huge and diverse set of economic activities requires a decentralized statistical system. This volume outlines the major assignments among institutions that include the Bureau of Economic Analysis, the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Department of Labor, the Census Bureau, and the Governors of the Federal Reserve System. An important part of the motivation for the new architecture is to integrate the different components and make them consistent. This volume is the first step toward achieving that goal.