Dynamic Quantitative Macoeconomics

25年前，宏观经济学似乎准备在数量精确度和有用性方面取得实质性进展。联立方程建模的统计工具已经成熟，似乎准备好以稳步增长的规模和精度应用当时被接受的凯恩斯理论。但事实证明，这些对取得巨大进展的预期过于乐观。凯恩斯理论不再代表一种共识；联立方程理论的优雅工具比几年前更少使用。目前在定量宏观经济研究方面的进展归功于几个不同群体的研究，这些群体的目标和方法不同。其中包括商业预测组织在持续、实际有用的大规模接触数据方面所做的工作；理性预期模型，该模型对个人和机构行为如何产生数据中观察到的模式提供现实上复杂的解释性解释；以及概率建模方法，该方法对模型预测和政策预测相关的不确定性提供越来越准确的图景。这些群体之间的交流是有限的，所有这些群体的进展都很缓慢，因为近年来对量化宏观经济学中持续的、以科学为导向的研究的资金减少。这笔赠款支持建立经验宏观经济研究所。该研究所的目的将是鼓励在经验性宏观经济学和相关领域进行大规模、长期持续和可重复的研究，并对结果进行不确定的量化衡量。鉴于宏观经济学和计算能力的最新发展，可以预期新的努力将取得进展。该研究所可以在汇集经验性宏观经济研究的不同方面发挥独特的、潜在的重要作用，并更快地推动宏观经济学计算研究的前沿。

Twenty-five years ago macroeconomics seemed poised for a substantial advance in quantitative precision and usefulness. The statistical tools of simultaneous equations modeling had reached maturity and appeared ready to allow application of then accepted Keynesian theory with steadily increasing scale and precision. But these expectations of dramatic progress proved overoptimistic. Keynesian theory no longer represents a consensus; the elegant tools of simultaneous equations theory are less used than a few years ago. Progress in quantitative macroeconomic research is currently due to the research of several different groups with disparate aims and methods. These include work by commercial forecasting organizations on sustained, practically useful, large-scale contact with data; rational expectations models that provide realistically complex interpretative explanations of how observed patterns in the data could arise from individual and institutional behavior; and methods of probability modeling that provide an increasingly accurate picture of the uncertainty associated with model forecasts and policy projections. Communication among these groups is limited, and progress is slow for all of them because of the shrinkage in recent years of funding for sustained, scientifically oriented research in quantitative macroeconomics. This grant supports the creation of the Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics. The purpose of the Institute would be to encourage research in empirical macroeconomics and related fields that is large scale, sustained over time, and reproducible, with quantitative measures of uncertainty attached to the results. A renewed effort can be expected to make progress, given recent developments in macroeconomics and in computational capacity. The institute can play a unique and potentially important role in drawing together the different strands of empirical macroeconomic research and pushing out more rapidly the frontiers of computational research in macroeconomics.