Did Greenspan Open Pandora's Box? Testing the Taylor Hypothesis and Beyond

Palma, Nuno (2013): Did Greenspan Open Pandora's Box? Testing the Taylor Hypothesis and Beyond.

Abstract

The Taylor hypothesis is the conjecture that the 2007-2009 financial crisis and the 2008-present downturn have been caused by loose monetary policy during 2002-2006. According to the Taylor hypothesis the Fed deviated from well-know rules of monetary policy-making over this period, and this deviation caused an inefficient boom and subsequent bust. I use a well know economic model of the US aggregate economy (Christiano, Eichenbaum and Evans 2005) to test this hypothesis. I interpret shocks as deviations from Taylor-type rules. I conclude that the Taylor hypothesis for the Taylor rule fails to reproduce observed fluctuations in the data. Output increases only 0.3% at maximum which occurs at 2004:Q2. In the data, the output gap was at it's maximum in 2006:Q3. However, the Taylor hypothesis modified to incorporate persistence in the policy rule can partly explain the boom of the economy after 2001.

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: Business Cycle, Financial Crisis, Great Moderation, Monetary Shocks, Persistence
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E32 - Business Fluctuations ; Cycles; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E37 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E4 - Money and Interest Rates; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E4 - Money and Interest Rates > E43 - Interest Rates: Determination, Term Structure, and Effects; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit > E52 - Monetary Policy; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E5 - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit > E58 - Central Banks and Their Policies; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E6 - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook > E65 - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes

References

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