Structural Vector Autoregressions and the Analysis of Monetary Policy Interventions: The Swiss Case

This paper estimates a structural VAR model for Switzerland consisting of key macroeconomic variables with quarterly data from 1974 to 2002, which allows the identification of a monetary policy shock with plausible impulse response patterns. Conditional forecasts generated by this model are used to analyse monetary policy within the new policy framework of the Swiss National Bank. The generation of these conditional forecasts attempts to take the Lucas critique into account.