Christopher A Sims
Biographic Data
| ID | 1471430 |
|---|---|
| NAME | Christopher A Sims |
| GIVEN NAMES | Christopher A |
| FAMILY NAME | Sims |
| SIGNATURE | SIMS C A |
| AFFILIATIONS | King's College London |
| VERIFIED | No |
| TOTAL WORKS | 19 |
| TOTAL CITATIONS | 11 |
| AUTHOR COUNT | 19 |
| EDITOR COUNT | 0 |
| FIRST PUBLICATION YEAR | 1967 |
| LATEST PUBLICATION YEAR | 2023 |
| H-INDEX | 2 |
Lawfare in America: A Commentary on the Standing Rock Sioux
Renewed emphasis by the executive branch regarding the value of indigenous knowledge in government policy hints at the long historical trajectory of eliding native perspectives in American federal planning. Even liberal democracies can marginalize social groups through the enforcement or threat of enforcement of laws. Rules-based societies therefore can exercise disproportionate command through the application of laws in which sanctions are attac…
Culture and War
War is a social phenomenon and understanding the local context in which military forces fight should be a central concern of commanders. In Military Anthropology, Montgomery McFate sets out to understand the ways in which research of social practices and behaviours has influenced military action. In a broad historical sweep, McFate examines the lived experiences of several trained and amateur anglophone anthropologists, finding that careful study…
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War
Fred Kaplan is a military journalist with impeccable credentials whose interest has invariably focused upon coteries of individuals exerting disproportionate influence over the character and conduc
But Economics Is Not an Experimental Science
The fact is, economics is not an experimental science and cannot be. "Natural" experiments and "quasi" experiments are not in fact experiments. They are rhetorical devices that are often invoked to avoid having to confront real econometric difficulties. Natural, quasi-, and computational experiments, as well as regression discontinuity design, can all, when well applied, be useful, but none are panaceas. The essay by Angrist and Pischke, in its e…
The Dangers of Individualism and the Human Relationship to Technology in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
This essay explores the representation of the human relationship to technology in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by incorporating Heidegger’s conception of technology in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology” to argue against the claim that Dick’s novel protests against the dehumanizing effects of technology. The essay argues that the novel instead protests against the dehumanizing effects of individualism and demon…
Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?
A multivariate regime-switching model for monetary policy is confronted with U.S. data. The best fit allows time variation in disturbance variances only. With coefficients allowed to change, the best fit is with change only in the monetary policy rule and there are three estimated regimes corresponding roughly to periods when most observers believe that monetary policy actually differed. But the differences among regimes are not large enough to a…
Implications of rational inattention
Macroeconomics and Methodology
Probabilistic reasoning is essential to discourse in economics. This is true in any discipline in which, as in economics, data collection is constrained and beliefs about the phenomena being studied are crucial to decisions that cannot be delayed. Some economists have recently turned away from form probabilistic inference, in part because of legitimate discontent with the prescriptions of specialized econometricians. However, this turning away ha…
Interpreting the macroeconomic time series facts
Existing theory and evidence on the effects of monetary policy are reviewed. Substantial room for disagreement among economists remains. New evidence, based on multivariate time series studies of several countries, is presented. While certain patterns in the data consistent with effective monetary policy are strikingly similar across countries, others, particularly the tendency of interest rate increases to predict high inflation, are harder to r…
Inference in Linear Time Series Models with some Unit Roots
This paper considers estimation and hypothesis testing in linear time series when some or all of the variables have (possibly multiple) unit roots. The motivating example is a vector autoregression with some unit roots in the companion matrix, which might include polynomials in time as regressors. Parameters that can be written as coefficients on mean zero, nonintegrated regressors have jointly normal asymptotic distribution, converging at the ra…
Solving the Stochastic Growth Model by Backsolving With a Particular Nonlinear Form for the Decision Rule
Backsolving is a class of methods that generate simulated values for exogenous forcing processes in a stochastic equilibrium model from specified assumed distributions for Euler-equation disturbances. It can be thought of as a way to force the approximation error generated by inexact choice of decision rule or boundary condition into distortions of the distribution of the exogenous shocks in the simulations rather than into violations of the Eule…
A Complicated Triangle: The Indians, the British, and the Americans in the Old Northwest
Colin G. Calloway. Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783-1815. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. xiv + 345 pp. Maps and Illus. Harvey Lewis Carter. The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. xvii + 275 pp. Maps and Illus. Colin G. Calloway and Harvey Lewis Carter focus mainly on the Old Northwest, the triangular area bounded by the Mississippi river, the Gre…
[Vector Autoregressions and Reality]: Comment
Forecasting and conditional projection using realistic prior distributions
This paper develops a forecasting procedure based on a Bayesian method for estimating vector autoregressions. The procedure is applied t o 10 macroeconomic variables and is shown to improve out-of-sample forecasts relative to univariate equations. Although cross-variable responses are damped by the prior, considerable interaction among the variables is shown to be captured by the estimates We provide unconditional forecasts as of 1982:12 and 1983…
What Kind of a Science Is Economics? A Review Article on Causality in Economics by John R. Hicks
Macroeconomics and Reality
Existing strategies for econometric analysis related to macroeconomics are subject to a number of serious objections, some recently formulated, some old. These objections are summarized in this paper, and it is argued that taken together they make it unlikely that macroeconomic models are in fact over identified, as the existing statistical theory usually assumes. The implications of this conclusion are explored, and an example of econometric wor…
Linear Regression with Non-Normal Error Terms: A Comment
Theoretical Basis for a Double Deflated Index of Real Value Added
The practice which we will refer to here as is a technique for arriving at a measure of value when one has available the value of gross output and materials inputs and also price indices for gross output and for materials inputs. The double deflation technique, despite its rather wide use, has been regarded as crudely empirical, with little, if any, justification from the point of view of theory.' The purpose of this note is to demonstrate that o…
Evaluating Short-Term Macro-Economic Forecasts: The Dutch Performance
Macroeconomics and Methodology
Probabilistic reasoning is essential to discourse in economics. This is true in any discipline in which, as in economics, data collection is constrained and beliefs about the phenomena being studied are crucial to decisions that cannot be delayed. Some economists have recently turned away from form probabilistic inference, in part because of legitimate discontent with the prescriptions of specialized econometricians. However, this turning away ha…
But Economics Is Not an Experimental Science
The fact is, economics is not an experimental science and cannot be. "Natural" experiments and "quasi" experiments are not in fact experiments. They are rhetorical devices that are often invoked to avoid having to confront real econometric difficulties. Natural, quasi-, and computational experiments, as well as regression discontinuity design, can all, when well applied, be useful, but none are panaceas. The essay by Angrist and Pischke, in its e…
Evaluating Short-Term Macro-Economic Forecasts: The Dutch Performance
Theoretical Basis for a Double Deflated Index of Real Value Added
The practice which we will refer to here as is a technique for arriving at a measure of value when one has available the value of gross output and materials inputs and also price indices for gross output and for materials inputs. The double deflation technique, despite its rather wide use, has been regarded as crudely empirical, with little, if any, justification from the point of view of theory.' The purpose of this note is to demonstrate that o…
Linear Regression with Non-Normal Error Terms: A Comment
Macroeconomics and Reality
Existing strategies for econometric analysis related to macroeconomics are subject to a number of serious objections, some recently formulated, some old. These objections are summarized in this paper, and it is argued that taken together they make it unlikely that macroeconomic models are in fact over identified, as the existing statistical theory usually assumes. The implications of this conclusion are explored, and an example of econometric wor…
What Kind of a Science Is Economics? A Review Article on Causality in Economics by John R. Hicks
Forecasting and conditional projection using realistic prior distributions
This paper develops a forecasting procedure based on a Bayesian method for estimating vector autoregressions. The procedure is applied t o 10 macroeconomic variables and is shown to improve out-of-sample forecasts relative to univariate equations. Although cross-variable responses are damped by the prior, considerable interaction among the variables is shown to be captured by the estimates We provide unconditional forecasts as of 1982:12 and 1983…
[Vector Autoregressions and Reality]: Comment
A Complicated Triangle: The Indians, the British, and the Americans in the Old Northwest
Colin G. Calloway. Crown and Calumet: British-Indian Relations, 1783-1815. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1987. xiv + 345 pp. Maps and Illus. Harvey Lewis Carter. The Life and Times of Little Turtle: First Sagamore of the Wabash. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1987. xvii + 275 pp. Maps and Illus. Colin G. Calloway and Harvey Lewis Carter focus mainly on the Old Northwest, the triangular area bounded by the Mississippi river, the Gre…
Inference in Linear Time Series Models with some Unit Roots
This paper considers estimation and hypothesis testing in linear time series when some or all of the variables have (possibly multiple) unit roots. The motivating example is a vector autoregression with some unit roots in the companion matrix, which might include polynomials in time as regressors. Parameters that can be written as coefficients on mean zero, nonintegrated regressors have jointly normal asymptotic distribution, converging at the ra…
Solving the Stochastic Growth Model by Backsolving With a Particular Nonlinear Form for the Decision Rule
Backsolving is a class of methods that generate simulated values for exogenous forcing processes in a stochastic equilibrium model from specified assumed distributions for Euler-equation disturbances. It can be thought of as a way to force the approximation error generated by inexact choice of decision rule or boundary condition into distortions of the distribution of the exogenous shocks in the simulations rather than into violations of the Eule…
Interpreting the macroeconomic time series facts
Existing theory and evidence on the effects of monetary policy are reviewed. Substantial room for disagreement among economists remains. New evidence, based on multivariate time series studies of several countries, is presented. While certain patterns in the data consistent with effective monetary policy are strikingly similar across countries, others, particularly the tendency of interest rate increases to predict high inflation, are harder to r…
Macroeconomics and Methodology
Probabilistic reasoning is essential to discourse in economics. This is true in any discipline in which, as in economics, data collection is constrained and beliefs about the phenomena being studied are crucial to decisions that cannot be delayed. Some economists have recently turned away from form probabilistic inference, in part because of legitimate discontent with the prescriptions of specialized econometricians. However, this turning away ha…
Implications of rational inattention
Were There Regime Switches in U.S. Monetary Policy?
A multivariate regime-switching model for monetary policy is confronted with U.S. data. The best fit allows time variation in disturbance variances only. With coefficients allowed to change, the best fit is with change only in the monetary policy rule and there are three estimated regimes corresponding roughly to periods when most observers believe that monetary policy actually differed. But the differences among regimes are not large enough to a…
The Dangers of Individualism and the Human Relationship to Technology in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep
This essay explores the representation of the human relationship to technology in Philip K. Dick’s Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep? by incorporating Heidegger’s conception of technology in his essay “The Question Concerning Technology” to argue against the claim that Dick’s novel protests against the dehumanizing effects of technology. The essay argues that the novel instead protests against the dehumanizing effects of individualism and demon…
But Economics Is Not an Experimental Science
The fact is, economics is not an experimental science and cannot be. "Natural" experiments and "quasi" experiments are not in fact experiments. They are rhetorical devices that are often invoked to avoid having to confront real econometric difficulties. Natural, quasi-, and computational experiments, as well as regression discontinuity design, can all, when well applied, be useful, but none are panaceas. The essay by Angrist and Pischke, in its e…
The Insurgents: David Petraeus and the Plot to Change the American Way of War
Fred Kaplan is a military journalist with impeccable credentials whose interest has invariably focused upon coteries of individuals exerting disproportionate influence over the character and conduc
Culture and War
War is a social phenomenon and understanding the local context in which military forces fight should be a central concern of commanders. In Military Anthropology, Montgomery McFate sets out to understand the ways in which research of social practices and behaviours has influenced military action. In a broad historical sweep, McFate examines the lived experiences of several trained and amateur anglophone anthropologists, finding that careful study…
Lawfare in America: A Commentary on the Standing Rock Sioux
Renewed emphasis by the executive branch regarding the value of indigenous knowledge in government policy hints at the long historical trajectory of eliding native perspectives in American federal planning. Even liberal democracies can marginalize social groups through the enforcement or threat of enforcement of laws. Rules-based societies therefore can exercise disproportionate command through the application of laws in which sanctions are attac…
Economics (12 works) · Econometrics (10 works) · Computer Science (9 works) · Monetary Policy and Economic Impact (9 works) · Mathematics (7 works) · Statistics (6 works) · Political science (5 works) · Sociology (5 works) · Complex Systems and Time Series Analysis (4 works) · Economic theories and models (4 works)