This chapter reviews and synthesizes our current understanding of the shocks that drive
economic fluctuations. The chapter begins with an illustration of the problem of identifying …

The paper provides a review of the estimation of structural vector autoregressions with sign
restrictions. It is shown how sign restrictions solve the parametric identification problem …

We propose a new strategy for dissecting the macroeconomic time series, provide a
template for the business-cycle propagation mechanism that best describes the data, and …

I investigate how the structure of the mortgage market influences macroeconomic dynamics,
using a general equilibrium framework with prepayable debt and a limit on the ratio of …

This paper proposes and implements a novel structural VAR approach to the identification of
news shocks about future technology. The news shock is identified as the shock orthogonal …

Is impacting confidence an important channel by which government spending shocks affect
economic activity? In a standard structural VAR, an empirical measure of confidence does …

Sign restrictions on the responses generated by structural vector autoregressive models
have been proposed as an alternative approach to the use of exclusion restrictions on the …

There is a widespread belief that changes in expectations may be an important independent
driver of economic fluctuations. The news view of business cycles offers a formalization of …

Notwithstanding the increased use of estimated dynamic stochastic general equilibrium
(DSGE) models over the last decade, structural vector autoregressive (VAR) models …

Microeconomic evidence reveals a direct link between firms' current earnings and their
access to debt. This paper studies macroeconomic implications of earnings-based …