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The Chinese economy has undergone three major phases: the 1978-97 period marked as the SOE-led economy, the 1998-2015 phase as the investment-driven economy, and the new normal economy since 2016. All three economies have been shaped by the government financial policies, defined as a set of credit policy, monetary policy, and regulatory policy. We analyze the macroeconomic effects of these financial policies throughout the three phases and provide the stylized facts to substantiate our analysis. The stylized facts differ qualitatively across different phases or economies. We argue that the impacts of China's financial policies work through transmission channels different from those in developed economies and that a regime switch from one economy to another was driven mainly by regime changes in financial policies.

A multivariate regime-switching model for monetary policy is confronted with U.S. data. The best fit allows time variation in disturbance variances only. With coefficients allowed to change, the best fit is with change only in the monetary policy rule and there are three estimated regimes corresponding roughly to periods when most observers believe that monetary policy actually differed. But the differences among regimes are not large enough to account for the rise, then decline, in inflation of the 1970s and 1980s. Our estimates imply monetary targeting was central in the early 1980s, but also important sporadically in the 1970s.

A multivariate model, identifying monetary policy and allowing for simultaneity and regime switching in coefficients and variances, is confronted with U.S. data since 1959. The best fit is with a model that allows time variation in structural disturbance variances only. Among models that also allow for changes in equation coefficients, the best fit is for a model that allows coefficients to change only in the monetary policy rule. That model allows switching among three main regimes and one rarely and briefly occurring regime. The three main regimes correspond roughly to periods when most observers believe that monetary policy actually differed, and the differences in policy behavior are substantively interesting, though statistically ill determined. The estimates imply monetary targeting was central in the early '80s but was also important sporadically in the '70s. The changes in regime were essential neither to the rise in inflation in the '70s nor to its decline in the '80s.