Empirically Evaluating Economic Policy in Real Time实时评估经济政策.pptVIP

What About Fiscal Policy? What should be the counterfactual? Only the automatic stabilizers? No stimulus package in 2008? No stimulus package in 2009? Still too early for 2009, but here is a preliminary look… Here We Go Again? Deficit, Federal Government Purchases, and Transfers to State and Local Governments for Purchases of Goods and Services in the February 2009 Stimulus Legislation (billions of dollars) Fiscal Increase Increase Increase Year in Federal in Transfers to in Federal Purchases States, Localities Deficit 2009 21 48 184 2010 47 107 400 2011 46 47 134 2012 36 8 36 2013 25 4 27 1014 27 0 22 2015 11 0 5 2016 -2 0 -8 2017 -3 0 -7 2018 -2 0 -6 Table 3 from Cogan, Cwik, Taylor, Wieland (2009) What about government purchases? New Keynesian Estimate of Impact of Government Purchases G is about as forecast by CCTW in Q1 and Q2 Conclusion The financial crisis demonstrates the need for real time policy evaluation. Fast-moving events, unprecedented policy responses 24 hr news cycle, blogs, quick spread of 1st idea Good policy depends on it Will not end with the crisis We now can collect and process data rapidly. No reason to wait 30 years as Friedman/Schwartz Can do better: More higher-frequency data (eg. Diebold) Improved techniques (eg. Svensson) Better outlets (Journal of Real Time Policy Evaluation) * Empirically Evaluating Economic Policy in Real Time John B. Taylor The Martin Feldstein Lecture National Bureau of Economic Research July 10, 2009 The Purpose of Today’s Feldstein Lecture To evaluate macroeconomic policy during the crisis, focusing on the period since the panic in the fall 2008 by comparing actual policy with counterfactuals: About monetary policy About fiscal policy Each counterfactual is composed of several sub-counterfactuals “Real time” because the crisis is ongoing Why the Emphasis on “Real Time”? The financial crisis has made it essential You have to evaluate policy qui