How do individual sectors respond to macroeconomic shocks? : a structural dynamic factor approach applied to Swiss data

In the framework of a Bayesian structural dynamic factor model, we analyze how aggregate shocks affect the full set of production sectors in the Swiss economy. Our approach proves to be useful to cope with the large data set and at the same time allows us to consistently identify fundamental aggregate shocks. We find that monetary variables, such as interest rates and exchange rates, mainly influence the financial sectors. Variations in value added in the manufacturing sectors or business services, on the other hand, are markedly influenced by changes in external demand, but show only little reactions to monetary variables.