Skopje, 22 December 2023 

The National Bank hosted the 49th Research Club session presenting the research paper “Review of the new calibrated DSGE model for the Macedonian economy” by Tibor Hledik, Jan Vlcek, Joana Madjoska and Mite Miteski.  This model was developed by the National Bank, within the technical assistance project in cooperation with the International Monetary Fund and the Czech National Bank.  Mite Miteski from the National Bank presented the views and conclusions of the research on behalf of the authors. 

The Director of the Monetary Policy, Research and Statistics Sector Sultanija Bojceva Terzijan delivered the key note and pointed out the importance of the research paper to expand the set of instruments for modeling and analysis of the National Bank, which will further improve the decision-making process.  She concluded that by setting this model, the National Bank is aligned with the central banks of the developed countries, which regularly use such models within their forecasting and policy analysis systems.

At the beginning it was pointed out that within this project а new calibrated DSGE model was established, which reflects the features of the Macedonian economy, as a small and open economy with fixed exchange rate which has suffered significant structural changes in recent years.  The development of this model expands the set of instruments for modeling, research and policy analysis within the National Bank, which will further improve the decision-making process.  The presentation introduced the theoretical structure of the model in detail, the macroeconomic relations, calibrated parameters which determine the cyclic features of the model, as well as the model’s evaluation methods (impulse-response functions, historical decomposition of shocks and sample projections).  As stated above, the results of the model are solid and it can be regularly used for different simulations to monitor the response to various variables of certain shocks, their contribution, as well as their transmission to other sectors of the economy,  At the end of the presentation it was pointed out that the research based on this model is relevant to the policy makers, since it enables improved perceptions of the basic drivers of the domestic economy, seen through a new prism, given its microeconomic setup. 

The presentation resulted in a discussion among the participants, encouraged by the presentation of the paper and the conclusions drawn. The 49th session successfully wrapped up the Club’s activities for this calendar year. The next Research session will be held in March next year.