The effects of monetary policy on unemployment dynamics under model uncertainty - Evidence from the US and the euro area

Carlo Altavilla () and Matteo Ciccarelli ()
Additional contact information
Matteo Ciccarelli: European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany., http://www.ecb.europa.eu/home/html/index.en.html

No 1089, Working Paper Series from European Central Bank

Abstract: This paper explores the role that the imperfect knowledge of the structure of the economy plays in the uncertainty surrounding the effects of rule-based monetary policy on unemployment dynamics in the euro area and the US. We employ a Bayesian model averaging procedure on a wide range of models which differ in several dimensions to account for the uncertainty that the policymaker faces when setting the monetary policy and evaluating its effect on real economy. We find evidence of a high degree of dispersion across models in both policy rule parameters and impulse response functions. Moreover, monetary policy shocks have very similar recessionary effects on the two economies with a different role played by the participation rate in the transmission mechanism. Finally, we show that a policy maker who does not take model uncertainty into account and selects the results on the basis of a single model may come to misleading conclusions not only about the transmission mechanism, but also about the differences between the euro area and the US, which are on average essentially small. JEL Classification: C11, E24, E52, E58.

Keywords: Monetary policy; Model uncertainty; Bayesian model averaging; Unemployment gap; Taylor rule. (search for similar items in EconPapers)
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-ecm, nep-eec, nep-mac and nep-mon
Date: 2009-09

Downloads: (external link)
http://www.ecb.europa.eu/pub/pdf/scpwps/ecbwp1089.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Working Paper: The Effects of Monetary Policy on Unemployment Dynamics under Model Uncertainty - Evidence from the US and the Euro Area (2009)
Working Paper: The Effects of Monetary Policy on Unemployment Dynamics Under Model Uncertainty. Evidence from the US and the Euro Area (2009)
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: http://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20091089

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
Press and Information Division, European Central Bank, Kaiserstrasse 29, 60311 Frankfurt am Main, Germany

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Working Paper Series from European Central Bank
Address: Postfach 16 03 19, Frankfurt am Main, Germany
Contact information at EDIRC.
Series data maintained by Official Publications ().