A structural Gaussian mixture vector autoregressive model is introduced. The shocks are identified by combining simultaneous diagonalization of the reduced form error covariance matrices with constraints on the time-varying impact matrix. This leads to flexible identification conditions, and some of the constraints are also testable. The empirical application studies asymmetries in the effects of the U.S. monetary policy shock and finds strong asymmetries with respect to the sign and size of the shock and to the initial state of the economy. The accompanying CRAN distributed R package gmvarkit provides a comprehensive set of tools for numerical analysis.
The COVID-19 recession that started in March 2020 led to an unprecedented decline in economic activity across the globe. To fight this recession, policy makers in central banks engaged in expansionary monetary policy. This paper asks whether the measures adopted by the US Federal Reserve (Fed) have been effective in boosting real activity and calming financial markets. To measure these effects at high frequencies, we propose a novel mixed frequency vector autoregressive (MF-VAR) model. This model allows us to combine weekly and monthly information within an unified framework. Our model combine…
This paper introduces a Threshold Asymmetric Conditional Autoregressive Range (TACARR) formulation for modeling the daily price ranges of financial assets. It is assumed that the process generating the conditional expected ranges at each time point switches between two regimes, labeled as upward market and downward market states. The disturbance term of the error process is also allowed to switch between two distributions depending on the regime. It is assumed that a self-adjusting threshold component that is driven by the past values of the time series determines the current market regime. Th…
We propose a regularized factor-augmented vector autoregressive (FAVAR) model that allows for sparsity in the factor loadings. In this framework, factors may only load on a subset of variables which simplifies the factor identification and their economic interpretation. We identify the factors in a data-driven manner without imposing specific relations between the unobserved factors and the underlying time series. Using our approach, the effects of structural shocks can be investigated on economically meaningful factors and on all observed time series included in the FAVAR model. We prove cons…
Analysis of multivariate time series is a common problem in areas like finance and economics. The classical tool for this purpose are vector autoregressive models. These however are limited to the modeling of linear and symmetric dependence. We propose a novel copula-based model which allows for non-linear and asymmetric modeling of serial as well as between-series dependencies. The model exploits the flexibility of vine copulas which are built up by bivariate copulas only. We describe statistical inference techniques for the new model and demonstrate its usefulness in three relevant applicati…
The autoregressive (AR) models are used to represent the time-varying random process in which output depends linearly on previous terms and a stochastic term (the innovation). In the classical version, the AR models are based on normal distribution. However, this distribution does not allow describing data with outliers and asymmetric behavior. In this paper, we study the AR models with normal inverse Gaussian (NIG) innovations. The NIG distribution belongs to the class of semi heavy-tailed distributions with wide range of shapes and thus allows for describing real-life data with possible jump…
We develop a new methodology for the fitting of nonstationary time series that exhibit nonlinearity, asymmetry, local persistence and changes in location scale and shape of the underlying distribution. In order to achieve this goal, we perform model selection in the class of piecewise stationary quantile autoregressive processes. The best model is defined in terms of minimizing a minimum description length criterion derived from an asymmetric Laplace likelihood. Its practical minimization is done with the use of genetic algorithms. If the data generating process follows indeed a piecewise quan…
In this study interest centers on regional differences in the response of housing prices to monetary policy shocks in the US. We address this issue by analyzing monthly home price data for metropolitan regions using a factor-augmented vector autoregression (FAVAR) model. Bayesian model estimation is based on Gibbs sampling with Normal-Gamma shrinkage priors for the autoregressive coefficients and factor loadings, while monetary policy shocks are identified using high-frequency surprises around policy announcements as external instruments. The empirical results indicate that monetary policy act…
We investigate in this paper a Bickel-Rosenblatt test of goodness-of-fit for the density of the noise in an autoregressive model. Since the seminal work of Bickel and Rosenblatt, it is well-known that the integrated squared error of the Parzen-Rosenblatt density estimator, once correctly renormalized, is asymptotically Gaussian for independent and identically distributed (i.i.d.) sequences. We show that the result still holds when the statistic is built from the residuals of general stable and explosive autoregressive processes. In the univariate unstable case, we prove that the result holds w…
Function-Valued Causal Influence in Nonlinear Time Series
Lucy Family Institute for Data \& Society, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA.;Department of Political Science, University of Notre Dame, Notre Dame, Indiana, USA
Vector autoregressive (VAR) models are widely used in practical studies, e.g., forecasting, modelling policy transmission mechanism, and measuring connection of economic agents. To better capture the dynamics, this paper introduces a new class of time-varying VAR models in which the coefficients and covariance matrix of the error innovations are allowed to change smoothly over time. Accordingly, we establish a set of theories, including the impulse responses analyses subject to both of the short-run timing and the long-run restrictions, an information criterion to select the optimal lag, and a…
This study investigates the impacts of asymmetry on the modeling and forecasting of realized volatility in the Japanese futures and spot stock markets. We employ heterogeneous autoregressive (HAR) models allowing for three types of asymmetry: positive and negative realized semivariance (RSV), asymmetric jumps, and leverage effects. The estimation results show that leverage effects clearly influence the modeling of realized volatility models. Leverage effects exist for both the spot and futures markets in the Nikkei 225. Although realized semivariance aids better modeling, the estimations of RS…