Estimating DSGE Models: Recent Advances and Future Challenges

We review the current state of the estimation of DSGE models. After introducing a general framework for dealing with DSGE models, the state-space representation, we discuss how to evaluate moments or the likelihood function implied by such a structure. We discuss, in varying degrees of detail, recent advances in the field, such as the tempered particle filter, approximated Bayesian computation, the Hamiltonian Monte Carlo, variational inference, and machine learning, methods that show much promise, but that have not been fully explored yet by the DSGE community. We conclude by outlining three future challenges for this line of research.

[1]  Jesús Fernández-Villaverde,et al.  The econometrics of DSGE models , 2009 .

[2]  Rudolph van der Merwe,et al.  The unscented Kalman filter for nonlinear estimation , 2000, Proceedings of the IEEE 2000 Adaptive Systems for Signal Processing, Communications, and Control Symposium (Cat. No.00EX373).

[3]  Frank Schorfheide,et al.  Solution and Estimation Methods for DSGE Models , 2015 .

[4]  Pierre-Louis Lions,et al.  Income and Wealth Distribution in Macroeconomics: A Continuous-Time Approach , 2017, The Review of Economic Studies.

[5]  Valerio Scalone Estimating Non-Linear DSGES with the Approximate Bayesian Computation: An Application to the Zero Lower Bound , 2015 .

[6]  A. Gelman,et al.  Weak convergence and optimal scaling of random walk Metropolis algorithms , 1997 .

[7]  The Term Structure of Interest Rates in a DSGE Model with Recursive Preferences , 2011 .

[8]  T. Başar,et al.  A New Approach to Linear Filtering and Prediction Problems , 2001 .

[9]  David M. Blei,et al.  Variational Inference: A Review for Statisticians , 2016, ArXiv.

[10]  Pablo A. Guerrón-Quintana,et al.  Uncertainty shocks and business cycle research , 2020, Review of Economic Dynamics.

[11]  Edward P. Herbst,et al.  Tempered Particle Filtering , 2017, Journal of Econometrics.

[12]  Serena Ng,et al.  Dynamic Identification of Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium Models , 2011 .

[13]  Paul Marjoram,et al.  Markov chain Monte Carlo without likelihoods , 2003, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America.

[14]  Jesús Fernández-Villaverde,et al.  The Pruned State-Space System for Non-Linear DSGE Models: Theory and Empirical Applications , 2013 .

[15]  H. Kunsch Recursive Monte Carlo filters: Algorithms and theoretical analysis , 2006, math/0602211.

[16]  Arthur Gretton,et al.  Gradient-free Hamiltonian Monte Carlo with Efficient Kernel Exponential Families , 2015, NIPS.

[17]  Nando de Freitas,et al.  An Introduction to Sequential Monte Carlo Methods , 2001, Sequential Monte Carlo Methods in Practice.

[18]  Jesús Fernández-Villaverde,et al.  A Practical Guide to Parallelization in Economics , 2018 .

[19]  Paul Fearnhead,et al.  On the Asymptotic Efficiency of Approximate Bayesian Computation Estimators , 2015, 1506.03481.

[20]  Andrew Gelman,et al.  The No-U-turn sampler: adaptively setting path lengths in Hamiltonian Monte Carlo , 2011, J. Mach. Learn. Res..

[21]  Jesús Fernández-Villaverde,et al.  Comparing Solution Methods for Dynamic Equilibrium Economies , 2003 .

[22]  Keith Kuester,et al.  Monetary Policy with Heterogeneous Agents , 2012 .

[23]  Markus K. Brunnermeier,et al.  A Macroeconomic Model with a Financial Sector , 2012 .

[24]  James J. Heckman,et al.  Micro data and general equilibrium models , 1999 .

[25]  Mark M. Tanaka,et al.  Sequential Monte Carlo without likelihoods , 2007, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

[26]  Edward C. Prescott,et al.  Recursive Methods for Computing Equilibria of Business Cycle Models , 2020, Frontiers of Business Cycle Research.

[27]  Martin Schneider,et al.  Ambiguous Business Cycles , 2012 .

[28]  Michael Betancourt,et al.  A Conceptual Introduction to Hamiltonian Monte Carlo , 2017, 1701.02434.

[29]  Pablo A. Guerrón-Quintana,et al.  Risk Matters: The Real Effects of Volatility Shocks , 2009 .

[30]  J. Grossman The Likelihood Principle , 2011 .

[31]  Robert Kohn,et al.  Adaptive hybrid Metropolis-Hastings samplers for DSGE models , 2010 .

[32]  G. Violante,et al.  Monetary Policy According to HANK , 2016, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[33]  Jules H. van Binsbergen,et al.  The Term Structure of Interest Rates in a DSGE Model with Recursive Preferences , 2010 .

[34]  Andrew R. Barron,et al.  Universal approximation bounds for superpositions of a sigmoidal function , 1993, IEEE Trans. Inf. Theory.

[35]  Fabio Canova,et al.  Back to Square One: Identification Issues in DSGE Models , 2009, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[36]  Simon Scheidegger,et al.  Deep Equilibrium Nets , 2019, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[37]  Nikolay Iskrev Local identification in DSGE models , 2010 .

[38]  G. Casella,et al.  Explaining the Gibbs Sampler , 1992 .

[39]  Francis R. Bach,et al.  Breaking the Curse of Dimensionality with Convex Neural Networks , 2014, J. Mach. Learn. Res..

[40]  Serguei Maliar,et al.  Will Artificial Intelligence Replace Computational Economists Any Time Soon? , 2019 .

[41]  Finn E. Kydland,et al.  Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations , 1982 .

[42]  Jean Boivin,et al.  DSGE Models in a Data-Rich Environment , 2006 .

[43]  Jesús Fernández-Villaverde,et al.  Financial Frictions and the Wealth Distribution , 2019, SSRN Electronic Journal.

[44]  Jean-Michel Marin,et al.  Approximate Bayesian computational methods , 2011, Statistics and Computing.

[45]  Andrew Harvey,et al.  Forecasting, Structural Time Series Models and the Kalman Filter , 1990 .

[46]  V. Chernozhukov,et al.  An MCMC Approach to Classical Estimation , 2002, 2301.07782.

[47]  M. Woodford,et al.  INTEREST AND PRICES: FOUNDATIONS OF A THEORY OF MONETARY POLICY , 2005, Macroeconomic Dynamics.

[48]  Il Memming Park,et al.  BLACK BOX VARIATIONAL INFERENCE FOR STATE SPACE MODELS , 2015, 1511.07367.

[49]  Kent A. Smetters,et al.  Analyzing fiscal policies in a heterogeneous-agent overlapping-generations economy , 2014 .

[50]  Julia K. Thomas,et al.  Inventories and the Business Cycle: An Equilibrium Analysis of (S,S) Policies , 2003 .

[51]  Christophe Andrieu,et al.  A tutorial on adaptive MCMC , 2008, Stat. Comput..

[52]  M. Girolami,et al.  Riemann manifold Langevin and Hamiltonian Monte Carlo methods , 2011, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society: Series B (Statistical Methodology).

[53]  L. Hansen Large Sample Properties of Generalized Method of Moments Estimators , 1982 .

[54]  Mark W. Watson,et al.  Recursive solution methods for dynamic linear rational expectations models , 1989 .

[55]  Pablo A. Guerrón-Quintana,et al.  Bayesian Estimation of DSGE Models , 2012 .

[56]  Lawrence J. Christiano,et al.  Nominal Rigidities and the Dynamic Effects of a Shock to Monetary Policy , 2001, Journal of Political Economy.

[57]  Andrew Gelman,et al.  Handbook of Markov Chain Monte Carlo , 2011 .