Estimating The Parameters Of A Small Open Economy DSGE Model: Identifiability And Inferential Validity

This paper estimates the parameters of a stylized dynamic stochastic general equilibrium model using maximum likelihood and Bayesian methods, paying special attention to the issue of weak parameter identification. Given the model and the available data, the posterior estimates of the weakly identified parameters are very sensitive to the choice of priors. The author provides a set of tools to diagnose weak identification, which include surface plots of the log-likelihood as a function of two parameters, heat plots of the log-likelihood as a function of three parameters, Monte Carlo simulations using artificial data, and Bayesian estimation using three sets of priors.