[go: up one dir, main page]
More Web Proxy on the site http://driver.im/
IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/zbw/bubdps/522022.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Bayesian VARs and prior calibration in times of COVID-19

Author

Listed:
  • Hartwig, Benny
Abstract
This paper investigates the ability of several generalized Bayesian vector autoregressions to cope with the extreme COVID-19 observations and discusses their impact on prior calibration for inference and forecasting purposes. It shows that the preferred model interprets the pandemic episode as a rare event rather than a persistent increase in macroeconomic volatility. For forecasting, the choice among outlier-robust error structures is less important, however, when a large cross-section of information is used. Besides the error structure, this paper shows that the standard Minnesota prior calibration is an important source of changing macroeconomic transmission channels during the pandemic, altering the predictability of real and nominal variables. To alleviate this sensitivity, an outlier-robust prior calibration is proposed.

Suggested Citation

  • Hartwig, Benny, 2022. "Bayesian VARs and prior calibration in times of COVID-19," Discussion Papers 52/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:bubdps:522022
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/268252/1/1830347187.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Chiu, Ching-Wai (Jeremy) & Mumtaz, Haroon & Pintér, Gábor, 2017. "Forecasting with VAR models: Fat tails and stochastic volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 1124-1143.
    2. Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2022. "How to estimate a vector autoregression after March 2020," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 688-699, June.
    3. Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2016. "Common Drifting Volatility in Large Bayesian VARs," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 375-390, July.
    4. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2016. "Core Inflation and Trend Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 770-784, October.
    5. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    6. Michael W. McCracken & Serena Ng, 2021. "FRED-QD: A Quarterly Database for Macroeconomic Research," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 103(1), pages 1-44, January.
    7. Vasco Cúrdia & Marco Del Negro & Daniel L. Greenwald, 2014. "Rare Shocks, Great Recessions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(7), pages 1031-1052, November.
    8. Huber, Florian & Koop, Gary & Onorante, Luca & Pfarrhofer, Michael & Schreiner, Josef, 2023. "Nowcasting in a pandemic using non-parametric mixed frequency VARs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 232(1), pages 52-69.
    9. Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2015. "Bayesian VARs: Specification Choices and Forecast Accuracy," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(1), pages 46-73, January.
    10. Bobeica, Elena & Hartwig, Benny, 2023. "The COVID-19 shock and challenges for inflation modelling," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 519-539.
    11. Timothy Cogley & Thomas J. Sargent, 2005. "Drift and Volatilities: Monetary Policies and Outcomes in the Post WWII U.S," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 8(2), pages 262-302, April.
    12. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2019. "Priors for the Long Run," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 114(526), pages 565-580, April.
    13. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Prior Selection for Vector Autoregressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 436-451, May.
    14. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/13388 is not listed on IDEAS
    15. Sims, Christopher A & Zha, Tao, 1998. "Bayesian Methods for Dynamic Multivariate Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 949-968, November.
    16. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    17. Hartwig, Benny, 2020. "Robust Inference in Time-Varying Structural VAR Models: The DC-Cholesky Multivariate Stochastic Volatility Model," VfS Annual Conference 2020 (Virtual Conference): Gender Economics 224528, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    18. Koenker, Roger W & Bassett, Gilbert, Jr, 1978. "Regression Quantiles," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(1), pages 33-50, January.
    19. Litterman, Robert B, 1986. "Forecasting with Bayesian Vector Autoregressions-Five Years of Experience," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(1), pages 25-38, January.
    20. Siddhartha Chib & Srikanth Ramamurthy, 2014. "DSGE Models with Student- t Errors," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(1-4), pages 152-171, June.
    21. Todd E. Clark & Francesco Ravazzolo, 2015. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Performance under Alternative Specifications of Time‐Varying Volatility," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(4), pages 551-575, June.
    22. Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2020. "How to Estimate a VAR after March 2020," NBER Working Papers 27771, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    23. Geweke, J, 1993. "Bayesian Treatment of the Independent Student- t Linear Model," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(S), pages 19-40, Suppl. De.
    24. Jacquier, Eric & Polson, Nicholas G. & Rossi, P.E.Peter E., 2004. "Bayesian analysis of stochastic volatility models with fat-tails and correlated errors," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 122(1), pages 185-212, September.
    25. Serena Ng, 2021. "Modeling Macroeconomic Variations after Covid-19," NBER Working Papers 29060, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    26. Joshua C. C. Chan, 2020. "Large Bayesian VARs: A Flexible Kronecker Error Covariance Structure," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 38(1), pages 68-79, January.
    27. Mattias Villani, 2009. "Steady-state priors for vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(4), pages 630-650.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Colunga-Ramos, Luis Fernando & Cepeda, Leonardo E. Torre, 2024. "Regional supply, demand and labor shocks on the manufacturing sector during COVID-19 in Mexico," Latin American Journal of Central Banking (previously Monetaria), Elsevier, vol. 5(2).
    2. Granados, Camilo & Parra-Amado, Daniel, 2024. "Estimating the output gap after COVID: How to address unprecedented macroeconomic variations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 135(C).
    3. Colunga L. Fernando & Torre Cepeda Leonardo, 2023. "Effects of Supply, Demand, and Labor Market Shocks in the Mexican Manufacturing Sector," Working Papers 2023-10, Banco de México.
    4. Ter Steege, Lucas, 2024. "Variational inference for Bayesian panel VAR models," Working Paper Series 2991, European Central Bank.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bobeica, Elena & Hartwig, Benny, 2023. "The COVID-19 shock and challenges for inflation modelling," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 519-539.
    2. Chan, Joshua C.C., 2023. "Comparing stochastic volatility specifications for large Bayesian VARs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 1419-1446.
    3. Carriero, Andrea & Clark, Todd E. & Marcellino, Massimiliano, 2019. "Large Bayesian vector autoregressions with stochastic volatility and non-conjugate priors," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 137-154.
    4. Chan, Joshua C.C., 2021. "Minnesota-type adaptive hierarchical priors for large Bayesian VARs," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(3), pages 1212-1226.
    5. Gael M. Martin & David T. Frazier & Ruben Loaiza-Maya & Florian Huber & Gary Koop & John Maheu & Didier Nibbering & Anastasios Panagiotelis, 2023. "Bayesian Forecasting in the 21st Century: A Modern Review," Monash Econometrics and Business Statistics Working Papers 1/23, Monash University, Department of Econometrics and Business Statistics.
    6. Joshua Chan, 2023. "BVARs and Stochastic Volatility," Papers 2310.14438, arXiv.org.
    7. Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino & Elmar Mertens, 2024. "Addressing COVID-19 Outliers in BVARs with Stochastic Volatility," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(5), pages 1403-1417, September.
    8. Martin, Gael M. & Frazier, David T. & Maneesoonthorn, Worapree & Loaiza-Maya, Rubén & Huber, Florian & Koop, Gary & Maheu, John & Nibbering, Didier & Panagiotelis, Anastasios, 2024. "Bayesian forecasting in economics and finance: A modern review," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 811-839.
    9. Chenghan Hou & Bao Nguyen & Bo Zhang, 2023. "Real‐time forecasting of the Australian macroeconomy using flexible Bayesian VARs," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 418-451, March.
    10. Bobeica, Elena & Hartwig, Benny, 2021. "The COVID-19 shock and challenges for time series models," Working Paper Series 2558, European Central Bank.
    11. Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2016. "Large Vector Autoregressions with Stochastic Volatility and Flexible Priors," Working Papers (Old Series) 1617, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    12. Chiu, Ching-Wai (Jeremy) & Mumtaz, Haroon & Pintér, Gábor, 2017. "Forecasting with VAR models: Fat tails and stochastic volatility," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 1124-1143.
    13. Joshua C. C. Chan & Liana Jacobi & Dan Zhu, 2022. "An automated prior robustness analysis in Bayesian model comparison," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(3), pages 583-602, April.
    14. Prüser, Jan, 2023. "Data-based priors for vector error correction models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 209-227.
    15. Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2022. "How to estimate a vector autoregression after March 2020," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 688-699, June.
    16. Joshua C. C. Chan, 2019. "Large Bayesian vector autoregressions," CAMA Working Papers 2019-19, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    17. Florian Huber & Gary Koop, 2023. "Subspace shrinkage in conjugate Bayesian vector autoregressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 556-576, June.
    18. Dimitrios P. Louzis, 2019. "Steady‐state modeling and macroeconomic forecasting quality," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 34(2), pages 285-314, March.
    19. Chiu, Ching-Wai (Jeremy) & Mumtaz, Haroon & Pinter, Gabor, 2016. "VAR models with non-Gaussian shocks," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 86238, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    20. Knut Are Aastveit & Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2017. "Have Standard VARS Remained Stable Since the Crisis?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 931-951, August.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    forecasting; multivariate t errors; common time-varying volatility; outlier-robust prior calibration;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:bubdps:522022. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/dbbgvde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.