AN AMERICAN MACROECONOMIC PICTURE. SUPPLY AND DEMAND SHOCKS IN THE FREQUENCY DOMAIN.

We provide a few new empirical facts that any theoretical model of the US macroeconomy should feature in order to be consistent with the data. 1) There are two classes of shocks: demand and supply. Supply shocks have long-run effects on economic activity, demand shocks do not. 2) Both supply and demand shocks are important sources of business cycles fluctuations. 3) Supply shocks are the primary driver for consumption fluctuations, demand shocks for investment. 4) The demand shock is closely related to the credit spread, while the supply shock is essentially a news technology shock. The results are obtained using a novel frequency domain method to identify demand and supply shock.