We estimate a new Keynesian open economy dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model of Australia with a large number of shocks, frictions and rigidities, matching a large number of observable time series. We find that both foreign and domestic shocks are important drivers of the Australian business cycle. We also find that the initial impact on inflation of an increase in demand for Australian commodities is negative, because of an improvement in the real exchange rate, although there is a persistent positive effect on inflation that dominates at longer horizons.

This article describes and quantifies the macroeconomic effects of different types of terms of trade shocks and their propagation in the Australian economy. Three types of shocks are identified based on their impact on commodity prices, global manufactured prices and global economic activity. The first two shocks, a world demand shock and a commodity‐market‐specific shock, are fairly standard. The third shock, a globalisation shock that may result, for instance, from the increasing importance of China, India and eastern Europe in the global economy, is more novel. The globalisation shock is associated with a decline in manufactured prices, a rise in commodity prices and an increase in global economic activity. Determining the underlying source of variation in the terms of trade is shown to be important for understanding the impact on the Australian economy as all three shocks propagate through the economy in different ways. The relative contribution of each shock to inflation, output, interest rates and the exchange rate has also varied over time. The main conclusion of the article is that a higher terms of trade tends to be expansionary but is not always inflationary. A key result is that the floating exchange rate has provided an important buffer to the external shocks that move the terms of trade.

We explore the positive relationship between house prices and household spending by following a panel of Australian households. No evidence for 'traditional housing wealth effects' is found, with young homeowners exhibiting the largest wealth effects. Young renters also exhibit a positive consumption response to house prices, although less so than young homeowners. This suggests that increasing house prices raise spending via easing credit constraints and a common association between house prices and a third factor. Results from a cohort-level panel are similar to those using household-level data, suggesting that 'pseudo-panels' may be used as a partial substitute for actual panels.

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JEL classification: E32 C32Keywords: VAR models Sign restrictions Shock identification Small open economy models a b s t r a c t This paper examines the ability of vector autoregressive (VAR) models to properly identify the transmission of monetary policy in a controlled experiment. Simulating data from a small open economy DSGE model estimated for Australia, we find that signrestricted VAR models do reasonably well at estimating the responses of macroeconomic variables to monetary policy shocks. This is in contrast to models that use recursive zero-type restrictions, for which inflation can rise following an unexpected interest rate increase while the exchange rate can appreciate or depreciate depending on the ordering of the variables. Sign-restricted VAR models seem to be able to overcome puzzles related to the real exchange rate, provided that a sufficient number of different types of shocks are identified. Despite delivering the correct sign of the impulse responses, central tendency measures of sign-restricted VAR models can, however, be misleading and hardly ever coincide with the true impulses. This finding casts doubt on the common notion that the median impulses are the 'most probable' description of the true data-generating process.Crown