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The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks on the Uk Economy
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.
New Evidence on Cyclical and Structural Sources of Unemployment
We provide cross-country evidence on the relative importance of cyclical and structural factors in explaining unemployment, including the sharp rise in U.S. long-term unemployment during the Great Recession of 2007-09. About 75% of the forecast error variance of unemployment is accounted for by cyclical factors-real GDP changes (?Okun‘s Law?), monetary and fiscal policies, and the uncertainty effects emphasized by Bloom (2009). Structural factors, which we measure using the dispersion of industry-level stock returns, account for the remaining 25 percent. For U.S. long-term unemployment the split between cyclical and structural factors is closer to 60-40, including during the Great Recession.
Monetary and Macroprudential Policy Rules in a Model with House Price Booms
We argue that a stronger emphasis on macrofinancial risk could provide stabilization benefits. Simulations results suggest that strong monetary reactions to accelerator mechanisms that push up credit growth and asset prices could help macroeconomic stability. In addition, using a macroprudential instrument designed specifically to dampen credit market cycles would also be useful. But invariant and rigid policy responses raise the risk of policy errors that could lower, not raise, macroeconomic stability. Hence, discretion would be required.
Macroeconomic Patterns and Monetary Policy in the Run-up to Asset Price Busts
We find that inflation, output and the stance of monetary policy do not typically display unusual behavior ahead of asset price busts. By contrast, credit, shares of investment in GDP, current account deficits, and asset prices typically rise, providing useful, if not perfect, leading indicators of asset price busts. These patterns could also be observed in the build-up to the current crisis. Monetary policy was not the main, systematic cause of the current crisis. But, with inflation typically under control, central banks effectively accommodated these growing imbalances, raising the risk of damaging busts.
Evaluating Historical CGER Assessments
The IMF's Consultative Group on Exchange Rate issues (CGER) has been conducting exchange rate assessments as part of the surveillance process since 1997. This paper evaluates CGER assessments from 1997 to 2006, by comparing these to subsequent movements in real effective exchange rates (REER). We find that CGER's estimated misalignments have predictive power over future REER movements, especially over longer horizons and after changes in fundamentals are accounted for. But while CGER misalignments frequently predict the direction of currency movements correctly, misalignments have tended to be persistent, resulting in systematic errors-overprediction for undervalued currencies and underprediction for overvalued currencies.
The Uncertainty Channel of Contagion
The 2007 subprime crisis in the U.S. triggered a succession of financial crises around the globe, reigniting interest in the contagion phenomenon. Not all crises, however, are contagious. This paper models a new channel of contagion where the degree of anticipation of crises, through its impact on investor uncertainty, determines the occurrence of contagion. Incidences of surprise crises lead investors to doubt the accuracy of their informationgathering technology, which endogenously increases the probability of crises elsewhere. Anticipated crisis, instead, have the opposite effect. Importantly, this channel is empirically shown to have an independent effect beyond other contagion channels.
Incorporating Market Information into the Construction of the Fan Chart
This paper develops a simple procedure for incorporating market-based information into the construction of fan charts. Using the International Monetary Fund (IMF)'s global growth forecast as a working example, the paper goes through the theoretical and practical considerations of this new approach. The resulting spreadsheet, which implements the approach, is available upon request from the authors.
The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks on the UK Economy
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.
Credit Conditions and Recoveries from Recessions Associated with Financial Crises
Recoveries from recessions associated with a financial crisis tend to be sluggish. In this paper, we present evidence that stressed credit conditions are an important factor constraining the pace of recovery. In particular, using industry-level data, we find that industries relying more on external finance grow more slowly than other industries during recoveries from recessions associated with financial crises. Additional tests, based on establishment size, on alternative definitions of financial crises, and on corporate-government interest rate spreads, support the findings. Moreover, for subsets of industries where financial frictions are more severe, we find much stronger differential growth effects.
Evaluating Historical CGER Assessments
The IMF''s Consultative Group on Exchange Rate issues (CGER) has been conducting exchange rate assessments as part of the surveillance process since 1997. This paper evaluates CGER assessments from 1997 to 2006, by comparing these to subsequent movements in real effective exchange rates (REER). We find that CGER''s estimated misalignments have predictive power over future REER movements, especially over longer horizons and after changes in fundamentals are accounted for. But while CGER misalignments frequently predict the direction of currency movements correctly, misalignments have tended to be persistent, resulting in systematic errors-overprediction for undervalued currencies and underprediction for overvalued currencies.
