Browsing by Author "Zsurkis, Gabriel"
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- A reexamination of inflation persistence dynamics in OECD countries : A new approachPublication . Zsurkis, Gabriel; Nicolau, João; Rodrigues, Paulo M.M.This paper introduces a simple and easy to implement procedure to test for changes in persistence. The time-varying parameter that characterizes persistence changes under the alternative hypothesis is approximated by a parsimonious cosine function. The new test procedure is the minimum of a t-statistic, computed from a test regression that considers a set of reasonable values for a frequency term that is used to evaluate the time varying properties of persistence. The asymptotic distributions of the new tests are derived and critical values are provided. An indepth Monte Carlo analysis shows that the new procedure has important power gains when compared to the local GLS de-trended Dickey-Fuller (DF GLS) type tests introduced by Elliott et al. (1996) under various data generating processes with persistence changes. Moreover, an empirical application to OECD countries’ inflation series shows that for most countries analysed persistence was high in the first half of the sample and subsequently decreased. These results are compatible with modern macroeconomic theories that point to changes in inflation behavior in the early 1980s and also with recent empirical evidence against the I(1)-I(0) dichotomy.
- The expected time to cross a threshold and its determinants : a simple and flexible frameworkPublication . Zsurkis, Gabriel; Nicolau, João; Rodrigues, Paulo M.M.In this paper we introduce a flexible framework to estimate the expected time (ET) an outcome variable takes to cross a threshold conditional on covariates. The proposed method ology makes use of the Markovian property and allows us to infer the impacts that co variates have on the ET an outcome variable takes to revert to a value of interest (for instance, its mean) given a specific starting point. An empirical analysis of the response of U.S. unemployment persistence to monetary policy and government spending shocks is provided, contributing to a still limited literature which simultaneously allows for both types of shocks. Our results suggest that unexpected monetary and fiscal expansions seem to have a relevant role in accelerating the pace of unemployment decline towards its natural rate; and that contractionary monetary and fiscal shocks in a context of labor market slack may result in high ETs.