Is the macroeconomy locally unstable and why should we care?
Beaudry, Paul
Galizia, Dana
Portier, Franck

Data: 2016
Resum: In most modern macroeconomic models, the steady state (or balanced growth path) of the system is a local attractor, in the sense that, in the absence of shocks, the economy would converge to the steady state. In this paper, we examine whether the time series behavior of macroeconomic aggregates (especially labor market aggregates) is in fact supportive of this local-stability view of macroeconomic dynamics, or if it instead favors an alternative interpretation in which the macroeconomy may be better characterized as being locally unstable, with nonlinear deterministic forces capable of producing endogenous cyclical behavior. To do this, we extend a standard AR representation of the data to allow for smooth nonlinearities. Our main finding is that, even using a procedure that may have low power to detect local instability, the data provide intriguing support for the view that the macroeconomy may be locally unstable and involve limit-cycle forces. An interesting finding is that the degree of nonlinearity we detect in the data is small, but nevertheless enough to alter the description of macroeconomic behavior. We complete the paper with a discussion of the extent to which these two different views about the inherent dynamics of the macroeconomy may matter for policy.
Resum: The ADEMU Working Paper Series is being supported by the European Commission Horizon 2020 European Union funding for Research & Innovation, grant agreement No 649396.
Ajuts: European Commission 649396
Drets: Aquest document està subjecte a una llicència d'ús Creative Commons. Es permet la reproducció total o parcial, la distribució, la comunicació pública de l'obra i la creació d'obres derivades, fins i tot amb finalitats comercials, sempre i quan es reconegui l'autoria de l'obra original. Creative Commons
Llengua: Anglès
Col·lecció: Barcelona Graduate School of Economics. ADEMU working paper series
Col·lecció: ADEMU Working Paper Series ; 34
Document: Working paper
Matèria: Macroeconomic fluctuations ; Limit cycle ; Unemployment

Adreça alternativa: https://hdl.handle.net/10230/27702


52 p, 988.3 KB

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 Registre creat el 2018-10-23, darrera modificació el 2022-07-09



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