How the baby boomers' retirement wave distorts model-based output gap estimates

Maik Wolters

No 121, IMFS Working Paper Series from Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS)

Abstract: The paper illustrates based on an example the importance of consistency between the empirical measurement and the concept of variables in estimated macroeconomic models. Since standard New Keynesian models do not account for demographic trends and sectoral shifts, the authors proposes adjusting hours worked per capita used to estimate such models accordingly to enhance the consistency between the data and the model. Without this adjustment, low frequency shifts in hours lead to unreasonable trends in the output gap, caused by the close link between hours and the output gap in such models. The retirement wave of baby boomers, for example, lowers U.S. aggregate hours per capita, which leads to erroneous permanently negative output gap estimates following the Great Recession. After correcting hours for changes in the age composition, the estimated output gap closes gradually instead following the years after the Great Recession.

Keywords: low frequency trends; demographic trends; hours per capita measurement; output gap estimates; DSGE models; Bayesian estimation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C54 E32 J11 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2018
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-age and nep-mac
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (8)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/176992/1/1018513078.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: How the baby boomers' retirement wave distorts model‐based output gap estimates (2018)
Working Paper: How the Baby Boomers' Retirement Wave Distorts Model-Based Output Gap Estimates (2017)
Working Paper: How the baby boomers' retirement wave distorts model-based output gap estimates (2016)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:imfswp:121

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in IMFS Working Paper Series from Goethe University Frankfurt, Institute for Monetary and Financial Stability (IMFS) Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics ().