Evaluating Policy Counterfactuals: A VAR-Plus Approach
Working Paper 32988
DOI 10.3386/w32988
Issue Date
In a rich family of linearized structural macroeconomic models, the counterfactual evolution of the macro-economy under alternative policy rules is pinned down by just two objects: first, reduced-form projections with respect to a large information set; and second, the dynamic causal effects of policy shocks. In particular, no assumptions about the structural shocks affecting the economy are needed. We propose to recover these two sufficient statistics using a ``VAR-Plus'' approach, and apply it to evaluate several monetary policy counterfactuals.