Macroeconomic modelling in emuhow relevant is the change in regime?

Resum

We analyse the likely effects of changes in the monetary and financial regimes of EMU countries on the dynamics of output and inflation. In particular, we evaluate the impact of the regime shift on the forecasting performance of reduced-form models. Data for both the pre-EMU and the EMU regimes are generated by a relatively standard open-economy- DSGE model with sticky prices and wages, and restricted access to financial markets for some individuals. We find that the effects of the shift in the monetary regime on the processes followed by macroeconomic variables depend on the nature of the shocks impacting the economy. For plausible shock distributions the reduction in the accuracy of VAR-based inflation forecasts is relatively large and significant. The effect of the regime shift on output forecasts seems rather more modest and statistically insignificant. The impact on ouput forecasting accuracy would be comparatively much larger if the new monetary union regime were accompanied by a moderate relaxation of constraints affecting financial market access.