We employ a non-recursive identification scheme to identify the effects of a monetary policy shock in a Structural Vector Autoregressive (SVAR) model for the US post-WWII quarterly data. The identification of the shock is achieved via heteroskedasticity, and different on-impact macroeconomic responses are allowed for (but not imposed) in each volatility regime. We show that the impulse responses obtained with the suggested non-recursive identification scheme are quite similar to those conditional on a recursive VAR estimated with pre-1984 data. In contrast, recursive vs. non-recursive identification schemes return different short-run responses of output and investment during the Great Moderation. Robustness checks dealing with a different definition of investment, an alternative break-point, and federal funds futures rates as an indicator of the monetary policy stance are documented and discussed.

A vector autoregression (VAR) model of corn, farm egg, and retail egg prices is estimated and shocked with a corn price increase. Impulse responses in egg prices, t-statistics for the impulse responses, and decompositions of forecast error variance are presented. Analyses of results provide insights on the corn/egg price transmission mechanism and on how corn price shocks pulsate through the egg-related economy.

We investigate the business cycle effects of imperfect transmission of technology shocks within a basic real business cycle (RBC) model along two dimensions. First, we assume that agents cannot distinguish a temporary increase in productivity growth from a sustained increase in the underlying growth rate of productivity and instead must conduct signal extraction exercises and update beliefs about the source of aggregated shocks. Second, we propose a technology adjustment cost resulting in the slow diffusion of technological innovations into the production process. Both of these impediments to the transmission of technology result in a large initial wealth effect, increasing investment and hours less, relative to the usual RBC model without these frictions. Furthermore, each of these features is capable of producing a decline in hours on impact of the technology shock matching the negative response in hours found in the data by such works as Gali [American Economic Review 89(1), 249–271 (1999)].

Monetary policy should be guided by macroeconomic models with limited nominal rigidity; ‘New Classical’ or even for some issues just plain Classical (i.e. with no nominal rigidity at all) models are perfectly adequate for understanding various aspects of the economy that have previously led economists to believe in a high degree of nominal rigidity. On UK data these models account for the facts of inflation persistence and exchange rate ‘overshooting’; their impulse responses are in line with the data; and a typical example, the Liverpool Model, is marginally accepted in its entirety by the data since 1979. Such models suggest that no increased macro instability would result from taking the rigours of monetary policy one stage further from inflation targeting and ensuring that the price level itself is returned to its long-run preset target path — so that the value of money over long periods of time would be utterly predictable.

Sur le plan expérimental, l'analyse modale des structures non-linéaires est encore en butte à de nombreuses difficultés. Nous voulons montrer que l'utilisation exclusive de la transformée de Fourier unidimensionnelle ne permet pas d'obtenir les vraies fonctions de transfert nécessaires pour atteindre les fonctionnelles non-linéaires de Volterra. L'analyse jusqu'ici se cantonne dans la majorité des cas à l'obtention des valeurs propres de divers modes non-linéaires. Il est nécessaire d'obtenir par un moyen ou par un autre, les noyaux (ou réponses impulsionnelles) des fonctionnelles permettant d'évaluer les vecteurs propres correspondants. Nous utilisons la technique de multi-excitation pour déterminer les fonctionnelles non-linéaires.