This paper first investigates the effects of alternatives modes of deficit financing on the unemployment rate, inflation rate, and the real interest rate, within the framework of a small complete macroeconomic model. Secondly, it examines the nature of monetary and fiscal reaction functions. The two periods 1923- 1960 and 1961-1982 are considered, with substantial differences in behavior and policy being shown to exist between them The most important conclusion is that long-run monetary neutrality properties shown to exist over the latter period are not intrinsic to the economy, but rather are the result of the stabilization policies being conducted over that period.

We use a time-varying parameter dynamic factor model with stochastic volatility (DFM-TV-SV) estimated using Bayesian methods to disentangle the relative importance of the common component in FHFA house price movements from state-specific shocks, over the quarterly period of 1975Q2 to 2017Q4. We find that the contribution of the national factor in explaining fluctuations in house prices is not only critical, but also has been increasing and has become more important than the local factors since around 1990. We then use a Bayesian change-point vector autoregressive (VAR) model, that allows for different regimes throughout the sample period, to study the impact of aggregate supply, aggregate demand, (conventional) monetary policy, and term-spread shocks, identified based on sign-restrictions, on the national component of house price movements. We detect three regimes corresponding to the periods of "Great Inflation", "Great Moderation", and the zero lower bound (ZLB). While the conventional monetary policy is found to have played an important role in the historical evolution of the national factor in the first-regime, other shocks are found to be quite dominant as well especially during the second-regime, with monetary policy shocks playing virtually no role during this period. In the third-regime, unconventional monetary policy shock is found to have led to a (delayed) recovery in the housing market. But more importantly, we find evidence that the national housing factor has been detached from the identified macroeconomic shocks (fundamentals) since 2014, thus suggesting that a "national bubble" might be brewing again in the US housing market. Understandably, our results have important policy implications.

We use data on 57 firms over the period 1980-2007 to investigate profit persistence. We extend the literature by considering whether the parameter governing persistence varies between positive and negative profits (relative to normal). Thus, we are able to differentiate between entry and exit as conduits of the competitive model. Such information may be of importance to policy-makers in establishing competition legislation. We find firms with profits above normal are firms that have high barriers to entry and exit while firms with below-normal profits have low barriers to entry and exit.

We forecast US inflation using a standard set of macroeconomic predictors and a dynamic model selection and averaging methodology that allows the forecasting model to change over time. Pseudo out-of-sample forecasts are generated from models identified from a multipath general-to-specific algorithm that is applied dynamically using rolling regressions. Our results indicate that the inflation forecasts that we obtain employing a short rolling window substantially outperform those from a well-established univariate benchmark, and contrary to previous evidence, are considerably robust to alternative forecast periods.

This paper examines the relationship between 43 commodity returns using a dynamic factor model with time varying stochastic volatility. The dynamic factor model decomposes each commodity return into a common (market), sector-specific and commodity-specific component. It enables the variance attributed to each component to be estimated at each point in time. We find the return variation explained by the common factor has increased substantially for the recent period and is statistically significant for the vast majority of commodities since 2004 (at each point in time) This phenomenon is the strongest for non-perishable products. We link the amount of variation explained by the common factor to economic variables.

We generalize the Unobserved Components (UC) model to allow the permanent component to have different dynamics than the transitory components when decomposing US economic activity using a multivariate UC model of (log) output, consumption and investment. We find that these proposed dynamics in the permanent component are statistically significant and distinct from those of the transitory components. Our approach provides an alternative explanation for the growth cycles identified by Comin and Gertler (2006) that is related to the cyclical movements in technology, in a framework consistent with the Beveridge-Nelson (1981) decomposition.