Ben Zhe Wang

An Estimated Small Open Economy Model with Labour Market Frictions

We estimate small open economy models with involuntary unemployment using Australian data from 1993 to 2007, focusing on hiring costs and real wage rigidity. We find a strong preference for models with hiring costs, which account for 0.97% of GDP. The data favour models with real over nominal wage rigidity. Impulse responses to technology shocks reveal no productivity-employment puzzle for the preferred model. In the short run, technology shocks, operating through hiring costs via labour demand, explain most unemployment variance, while labour preference shocks explain most real wage variance. Demand shocks dominate supply shocks in explaining output variance. In the long run, these contributions reverse. Out-of-sample conditional forecasts perform well but cannot predict the confidence effects of the crisis.

Estimating Macroeconomic Uncertainty from Surveys - A Mixed Frequency Approach

We propose a new method of estimating economic uncertainty, using dispersions of forecasts of a wide range of financial, activity and inflation variables from both household and professional surveys at various frequencies. With a mixed-frequency state-space model, we construct ex-ante macroeconomic uncertainty estimates of the one-year ahead expected state of the economy. Impulse responses show uncertainty shocks lead to a contraction in economic activity, and monetary policy expansion reduces uncertainty, implying that endogenous uncertainty is an additional channel for counter-cyclical monetary policy.

The Impact of News on US Household Inflation Expectations

Analysis of monthly disaggregated data from 1978 to 2016 on US household in ation expectations reveals that exposure to news on in ation and monetary policy helps to explain in ation expectations. This remains true when controlling for household personal characteristics, their perceptions of the e ectiveness of government policies, their expectations of future interest rates and unemployment, and their sentiment levels. We nd evidence of an asymmetric impact of news on in ation expectations particularly after 1983, with news on rising in ation and easier monetary policy having a stronger e ect in comparison to news on lowering in ation and tightening monetary policy.

The U.S. Factor in Explaining and Forecasting Bilateral U.S. Exchange Rates

We identify a U.S.-driven factor using a monthly panel of fifteen bilateral exchange rates against the U.S. dollar since 1999. We find this factor is closely related to nominal and real macroeconomic variables, as well as financial market variables from the U.S. Using this factor alone, we show that the out-of-sample one-month-ahead forecasts outperform random walk forecasts for all currencies but the yen.

Daily Business and External Condition Indices for the Australian Economy

We estimate an unobservable domestic business conditions index for Australia using a variety of observable macroeconomic and financial variables, relating it to an unobservable external index involving external variables relevant to Australia. Our small open economy, dynamic factor model uses stock and flow variables arriving at mixed frequencies. We find important links between the domestic and external indices, consistent with the small open economy assumption.

Systemic Financial Risk Inference in a Global Setting

We propose a new top-down approach to measure systemic risk in the financial system. Our framework uses a combination of macroeconomic, financial and rating factors in representative regions of the world. We formulate a mixed-frequency state-space model to estimate macroeconomic factors. To derive financial risk factors, we use Moody’s/KMV expected default frequencies after accounting for ratings of major financial institutions in the considered regions. The estimated factors are combined to derive probabilities for systemically relevant defaults in the financial industry. Regional macroeconomic factors are significant predictors of the existence and number of systemically important defaults, while regional financial risk and ratings factors are relevant for the existence only. For major events, global credit risk also matters.