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8.4. VAR ANALYSIS OF MUNDELL—FLEMING 2498.4 VAR analysis of Mundell—FlemingEven though it required tons of algebra to solve, the stochastic Mundell-Fleming with one-period nominal rigidity is still too stylized to takeseriously in formulating econometric speciÞcations. Modeling lag dynamicsin price adjustment is problematic because we don’t have a goodtheory for how prices adjust or for why they are sticky. Tests of overidentifyingrestrictions implied by dynamic versions of the Mundell—Fleming model are frequently rejected, but the investigator does notknow whether it is the Mundell-Fleming theory that is being rejected orone of the auxiliary assumptions associated with the parametric econometricrepresentation of the theory. 10Sims [129] views the restrictions imposed by explicitly formulatedmacroeconometric models to be incredible and proposed the unrestrictedVAR method to investigate macroeconomic theory without having toassume very much about the economy. In fact, just about the onlything that you need to assume are which variables to include in theanalysis. Unrestricted VAR estimation and accounting methods aredescribed in Chapter 2.1.The Eichenbaum and Evans VAREichenbaum and Evans [41] employ the Sims VAR method to the Þvedimensional vector-time-series consisting of i) US industrial production,ii) US CPI, iii) A US monetary policy variable iv) US—foreign nominalinterest rate differential, and v) US real exchange rate. They consid- ⇐(143)ered two measures of monetary policy. The Þrst was the ratio of thelogarithm of nonborrowed reserves to the logarithm of total reserves.The second was the federal funds rate. They estimated separate VARsusing exchange rates and interest rates for each of Þve countries: Japan,Germany, France, Italy, and the UK with monthly observations from1974.1 through 1990.5.Here, we will re-estimate the Eichenbaum—Evans VAR and do theassociated VAR accounting using monthly observations for the US, UK,Germany, and Japan from 1973.1 to 1998.1. All variables except inter-10 See Papell [117].