Aggregate Supply Shocks Research Articles

Would a free banking system stabilize NGDP growth?

Since the 2008 financial crisis, a number of economists have suggested that central banks should follow an NGDP-targeting rule. Other researchers have argued that a free and unregulated banking system stabilizes NGDP growth as an unintended consequence. We explore this argument in a simple model of a free banking system. We find that a free banking system does indeed stabilize NGDP growth in response to aggregate demand shocks. However, we find that in response to aggregate supply shocks it stabilizes the inflation rate. An implication of this is that, unlike an NGDP-targeting central bank, a free banking system would not allow for disinflation or even deflation in response to a positive aggregate supply shock.

UK macroeconomic volatility: Historical evidence over seven centuries

Breaking ground from all previous studies, we estimate a time-varying Vector Autoregression model that examines the time-period 1270–2016 — the entire economic history of the U.K. Focusing on permanent and transitory shocks in the economy, we study the fluctuation in conditional volatilities and time-varying long-run responses of output growth and inflation. Unlike all previous studies that use time invariant linear models, our approach reveals that the pre 1600 period is a turbulent economic period of high volatility that is only repeated in the 20th century. The repeating patterns in the conditional volatilities follow from aggregate supply shocks, while most of the inflation responses follow from aggregate demand shocks. Thus, we uncover that despite the technological growth and the various changes in the structure of the U.K. economy in the last century, the recurring patterns call for an examination of the true impact of the various policies on the economy.

UK shocks and Irish business cycles, 1922–79

AbstractThis article examines the transmission of UK and global shocks to the Irish economy over the period 1922–79, using annual data for consumer prices and real GDP in a structural vector autoregression (SVAR) model. UK aggregate demand and supply shocks have large and significant effects on Irish CPI, but smaller effects on Irish real GDP. A historical decomposition indicates that UK aggregate supply and demand shocks played a more important role than domestic shocks in the evolution of Irish CPI. In contrast, the evolution of Irish real GDP is driven more by idiosyncratic domestic shocks than by UK shocks.

Macro Risks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

We extract aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks for the US economy from macroeconomic data on inflation, real GDP growth, core inflation and the unemployment gap. We first use unconditional non-Gaussian features in the data to achieve identification of these structural shocks while imposing minimal economic assumptions. We find that recessions in the 1970s and 1980s are better characterized as driven by supply shocks while later recessions were driven primarily by demand shocks. The Great Recession exhibited large negative shocks to both demand and supply. We then use conditional (time-varying) non-Gaussian features of the structural shocks to estimate risk for supply and demand shocks that drive (negatively skewed) and (positively skewed) variation for supply and demand shocks. The Great Moderation, a general decline in the volatility of many macroeconomic time series since the 1980s, is mostly accounted for by a reduction in the good demand variance risk factor. In contrast, the risk factors driving bad variance for both supply and demand shocks, which account for most recessions, show no secular decline. Finally, we find that macro risks significantly contribute to the variation in yields, bond risk premiums and the term premium. While overall bond risk premiums are counter-cyclical, an increase in bad demand variance is associated with lower risk premiums on bonds.

An Assessment of UK Macroeconomic Volatility: Historical Evidence Using Over Seven Centuries of Data

Breaking ground from all previous studies, we estimate a time-varying Vector Autoregression model that examines the time-period 1270-2016 - the entire economic history of the U.K. Focusing on permanent and transitory shocks in the economy, we study the fluctuation in conditional volatilities and time-varying long-run responses of output growth and inflation. Unlike all previous studies that use time invariant linear models, our approach reveals that the pre 1600 period is a turbulent economic period of high volatility that is only repeated in the 20th century. The repeating patterns in the conditional volatilities follow the approach of aggregate supply shocks, while most of the inflation responses follow from aggregate demand shocks. Thus, we uncover that despite the technological growth and the various changes in the structure of the U.K. economy in the last century, the recurring patterns call for an examination of the true impact of the various policies to the economy.

Is optimal Islamic financial contract stabilizing? The perspective of a New Keynesian model with the financial accelerator

This paper aims to inspect the stabilization aspects of Islamic financial contracts by drawing on a New Keynesian macroeconomic model with the financial accelerator. The model allows for shared responsibilities on both the assets and liabilities sides of the Islamic banks that resemble, in principle, the two-tiered Mudarabah financing on the asset side and profit-sharing investment accounts on the liability side. The implied optimal Islamic financial contract argues that payoff distribution between entrepreneur and bank is contingent on the macroeconomic environment via the entrepreneur's leverage, whereas that between bank and investors is endogenous to bank's capital and leverage. Compared to the conventional debt contract with a predetermined return, we find that an Islamic financial contract amplifies shocks as much as conventional financial contracts do, if not to a greater extent. The impacts on entrepreneurs' and banks' leverage, however, depend largely on the source of the shock and are opposite to those observed under conventional debt contract. Whereas favorable aggregate supply and monetary shocks increase the overall leverage, shocks favorably hitting preference and marginal efficiency of investment reduce the leverage. The underlying mechanism is the shock-shifting ex post payoff distribution between creditors and debtors that shapes the cost of the external finance and, thus, leverage.

AN EQUILIBRIUM AGGREGATE DEMAND AND SUPPLY MODEL TO EXAMINE THE DYNAMIC EFFECT OF OIL PRICE SHOCKS ON OUTPUT AND INFLATION IN IRAN AS AN OIL EXPORTING COUNTRY

Iran is an oil exporting country in Middle East. The high share of the oil revenues in Iran is a serious economic problem. Due to the high dependency of Iran’s economy on oil revenues, oil price shocks have a determinant impact on macroeconomic variables. In this paper, we analyze the dynamic effects of oil price shocks and the aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks on macroeconomic fluctuations in Iran. According to macroeconomic theory and aggregate demand and supply model in equilibrium, a structural vector autoregressive (VAR) model is applied to identify different structural shocks and further assess the relative contributions of different shocks on macroeconomic fluctuations, using a decomposition approach. The results show that oil price shocks have significant and positive effects on both output and inflation. Aggregate supply and aggregate demand shocks are the main causes of fluctuation in output and inflation, and moreover, the effect of aggregate supply shocks on output is permanent in the Iranian economy. On the base of this study results, we suggest the Iranian government should accelerate the economic reforms such as the finance system of state owned enterprises, the tax system, the cash subsidy distribution system, the allocation system of the government budget in national and provincial level, the financial and banking system, and so on. The suggested reforms aim to decrease in the share of oil revenues in the economy and protect the Iranian economy in the face of any exogenous and endogenous shocks.

Monetary Misperceptions: Optimal Monetary Policy Under Incomplete Information

Inflation targeting is strictly suboptimal when economic actors have incomplete information about the state of the economy. Nominal income targeting is approximately optimal, and exactly optimal under certain parameterizations. We derive this result in a “Lucas islands” monetary misperceptions model built from explicit microfoundations. Agents have knowledge of local productivity and money supply conditions, but must perform a signal extraction problem each period to estimate the aggregate productivity shock and the aggregate money supply shock. Without full information, agents cannot perfectly distinguish between relative price shocks and aggregate shocks, causing monetary policy to affect the real economy. Since the model is built from agents optimizing from first principles, we are able to take a second-order welfare approximation and ask what monetary policy rule is optimal. In contrast to sticky price or sticky information models, inflation and price level targeting are always suboptimal, as price level variation provides useful information to agents. Under log utility, nominal income targeting is optimal.

Variability in the effects of uncertainty shocks: New stylized facts from OECD countries

This study examines variability in the effects of uncertainty shocks using a panel of international data. It first evaluates variability in the effects of uncertainty shocks by applying rolling sample and time-varying parameter Vector Autoregression models to US data covering the past 70 years. The results reveal that the effects of uncertainty shocks on the US economy have changed substantially over time. First, the negative effect of uncertainty shocks on the output decreased until the recent period, in which monetary policy rules are constrained by the zero lower bound. Second, contrary to the negative aggregate demand interpretation in the recent literature, uncertainty shocks acted as a negative aggregate supply shock in the earlier periods. From the past 50 years’ data for 12 small open economies, I find that the negative effect of uncertainty shocks on output has increased, contrary to the US case. Additionally, the exchange rate and inflation responses are heterogeneous across countries, and the country’s commodity exporter or safe haven status is critical in determining the sign of these responses. Finally, the increased vulnerability of small open economies to uncertainty shocks is associated with an increase in international trade.

Macro Risks and the Term Structure of Interest Rates

We use non-Gaussian features in U.S. macroeconomic data to identify aggregate supply and demand shocks while imposing minimal economic assumptions. Recessions in the 1970s and 1980s were driven primarily by supply shocks, later recessions were driven primarily by demand shocks, and the Great Recession exhibited large negative shocks to both demand and supply. We estimate "macro risk factors" that drive "bad" (negatively skewed) and "good" (positively skewed) variation for supply and demand shocks. The Great Moderation is mostly accounted for by a reduction in good variance. In contrast, bad variances for both supply and demand shocks, which account for most recessions, shows no secular decline. We document that macro risks significantly contribute to the variation yields, risk premiums and return variances for nominal bonds. While overall bond risk premiums are counter-cyclical, an increase in demand variance lowers risk premiums.

State of Shocks Synchronization among Members of the GCC

This paper examines fluctuations of aggregate supply and demand shocks across the GCC countries. It argues that the world oil price influences aggregate demand and supply of these countries. Thus, in contrast to other studies, a SVAR model is used to identify structural shocks by including the oil price. The aggregate supply and demand shocks are then analyzed. The correlations of supply shocks among the member countries are either negative or low positive. Similarly, the correlations of demand shocks, except few pairs of countries, are also negative and low positive. Thus, shocks are not synchronized. These results are different than the results found in other similar studies probably due to the model specification. The implication of the findings is that the GCC countries would find it difficult to adjust supply and demand shocks if they form their aspired Gulf Monetary Union.

Aggregate Supply and Demand Shocks and Asset Prices

We explore one potential reason for the insignificant observed premium on CAPM risk: the observed covariance matrix is not drawn from the return space the model addresses. The CAPM is a pure exchange model that asks how investors on the demand side of the asset market would price an exogenously-determined return space. Returns in the model are variable because asset supply produces uncertain outcomes, but the returns researchers observe reflect variability in both supply outcomes and investor demand. We use separate instruments for aggregate demand and supply shocks, and obtain the following results. First, aggregate supply shocks and aggregate demand shocks both carry an economically and statistically significant positive risk premium. Second, assets' sensitivities to these aggregate shocks are correlated with commonly studied firm characteristics. High book-to-market firms are more sensitive to aggregate supply shocks, while return-momentum and high earnings-growth firms are more sensitive to aggregate demand shocks. This provides a clue as to why those factors are priced. Third, firms' sensitivities to supply and demand shocks are negatively correlated, with partially offsetting effects on single-beta risk estimates, thereby providing one potential explanation of the small risk premium reported in the literature. These results suggest that the supply-side risk addressed by the CAPM is priced, but single-beta estimation suffers from an identification problem.

Aftershocks of Monetary Unification: Hysteresis with a Financial Twist

Once upon a time, in the 1990s, it was widely agreed that neither Europe nor the United States was an optimum currency area, although moderating this concern was the finding that it was possible to distinguish a regional core and periphery (Bayoumi and Eichengreen, 1993). Revisiting these issues, we find that the United States is remains closer to an optimum currency area than the Euro Area. More intriguingly, the Euro Area shows striking changes in correlations and responses which we interpret as reflecting hysteresis with a financial twist, in which the financial system causes aggregate supply and demand shocks to reinforce each other. An implication is that the Euro Area needs vigorous, coordinated regulation of its banking and financial systems by a single supervisor—that monetary union without banking union will not work.

Loan Supply Shocks in Macedonia: A Bayesian SVAR Approach with Sign Restrictions

This paper analyses the effects of loan supply, as well as aggregate demand, aggregate supply and monetary policy shocks between 1998 and 2014 in Macedonia using a structural Vector Auto Regression with sign restrictions and Bayesian estimation. The main results indicate that loan supply shocks have no significant effect on loan volumes and lending rates, as well as on economic activity and prices. The effects of monetary policy on lending activity are fairly limited, although there is some evidence that it affects lending rates more than loan volumes. Monetary policy shocks have strong effects on inflation, while the central bank reacts strongly to adverse shocks hitting the economy. Baseline results are fairly robust to several extensions and robustness checks. According to historical decomposition, the lending activity was supporting economic growth before and during the crisis, but its contribution became negative during the recovery and it was a drag on growth until the end of the period. Pre-crisis GDP growth is mostly explained by the supportive interest rate of the main monetary policy instrument. However, the restrictive policy during the crisis for the purposes of maintaining monetary policy goals was associated with a fall in GDP, while the policy became supportive again during the early stages of the recovery. Policy rates in the recent years mostly reflect subdued lending activity and aggregate supply factors, which the central bank tries to counteract with a more accommodative policy.

Loan Supply Shocks in Macedonia: A Bayesian SVAR Approach with Sign Restrictions

This paper analyses the effects of loan supply, as well as aggregate demand, aggregate supply and monetary policy shocks between 1998 and 2014 in Macedonia using a structural Vector Auto Regression with sign restrictions and Bayesian estimation. The main results indicate that loan supply shocks have no significant effect on loan volumes and lending rates, as well as on economic activity and prices. The effects of monetary policy on lending activity are fairly limited, although there is some evidence that it affects lending rates more than loan volumes. Monetary policy shocks have strong effects on inflation, while the central bank reacts strongly to adverse shocks hitting the economy. Baseline results are fairly robust to several extensions and robustness checks. According to historical decomposition, the lending activity was supporting economic growth before and during the crisis, but its contribution became negative during the recovery and it was a drag on growth until the end of the period. Pre-crisis GDP growth is mostly explained by the supportive interest rate of the main monetary policy instrument. However, the restrictive policy during the crisis for the purposes of maintaining monetary policy goals was associated with a fall in GDP, while the policy became supportive again during the early stages of the recovery. Policy rates in the recent years mostly reflect subdued lending activity and aggregate supply factors, which the central bank tries to counteract with a more accommodative policy.

The Co-movement between Output and Prices: Evidence from Iran

This paper employs a multivariate dynamic conditional correlation GARCH model, which is developed by Engle (2001, 2002), to detect the timing and nature of changes in the comovement between Iranian output and prices for the periods after Iran–Iraq war , known as imposed war . The results showed that there is a weak correlation between output and prices after imposed war and varies periodically and changes from positive to negative after imposed war and changes from negative to positive again after 2009 crisis in Iran. We conclude that there is a contagion effect of the price index on output. The predominantly negative output-price co-movement suggests that the overall price level was typically countercyclical rather than procyclical. These findings imply the presence of aggregate supply versus aggregate demand shocks and sticky prices. Supply shocks are the main causes of stagflation. To solve the problem of stagflation, governments must adopt policies to push out the aggregate supply curve

Would a Free Banking System Target NGDP Growth?

Building on Selgin (1994), we develop a simple model of free banking and study the system’s effects on familiar macroeconomic variables. We show a free banking system does in fact stabilize nominal income in response to aggregate demand shocks. However, in the event of an aggregate supply shock, a free banking system instead stabilizes inflation, engaging in mildly procyclical behavior. We conclude by calling for a broader study of nominal income targeting and free banking in the tradition of ‘monetary constitutionalism’ (Yeager 1962; White et al. 2014) to ascertain whether this result, while almost certainly not the best of all possible worlds, is in fact the best of all probable worlds.

Transparent rules for deposing central bankers

I model flexible targeting with linear and quadratic loss function in the output gap and inflation rate. I find a form of targeting with one-sided dismissal rules attractive; it discourages the central banker from inflating and minimizes the probability of its dismissal in the presence of aggregate supply shocks. This procedure ties the central banker's performance to observable policy targets, whether the nominal output or the inflation rate, and gives some valuable flexibility in terms of stabilization of shocks Two cases of targeting procedures, nominal output targeting and inflation targeting, are compared to the full discretionary case without any dismissal rule. The central banker, accountable to hit the policy target, implements a dominant policy whenever she takes a hawkish stance against inflation, and targets the variable that is most affected by the unobservable supply shock. This type of reappointment contract implies that monetary policy would become fully transparent, consistently more credible and more effective than the discretionary case without dismissal.

What drives the German current account? And how does it affect other EU Member States?

We estimate a three-country model using 1995–2013 data for Germany, the Rest of the Euro Area (REA) and the Rest of the World (ROW) to analyse the determinants of Germany’s current account (CA) surplus after the launch of the euro. Our results suggest that the German surplus reflects a succession of distinct shocks. Mono-causal explanations of the surplus are thus insufficient. The most important factors driving the German surplus were positive shocks to the German saving rate and to ROW demand for German exports, as well as German labour market reforms and other positive German aggregate supply shocks. The key shocks that drove the rise in the German CA tended to worsen the REA trade balance, but had a weak effect on REA real activity. Our analysis suggests these driving factors are likely to be slowly eroded, leading to a very gradual reduction of the German CA surplus. An expansion in German government consumption and investment would raise German GDP and reduce the CA surplus, but the effects on the surplus would be weak.

Has Weak Lending and Activity in the UK been Driven by Credit Supply Shocks?

This paper investigates the role of credit supply shocks in driving the weakness in UK banks’ lending and economic activity during the various UK financial crises since 1966. It uses a structural VAR analysis to identify credit supply shocks separately from standard macroeconomic shocks. It finds that credit supply shocks can account for most of the weakness in bank lending since the onset of the recent financial crisis and 1/3 – 1/2 of the fall in GDP relative to its historic trend. It also finds that credit supply shocks behave more like aggregate supply shocks than aggregate demand shocks.