In structural vector autoregressive (SVAR) analysis a Markov regime switching (MS) property can be exploited to identify shocks if the reduced form error covariance matrix varies across regimes. Unfortunately, these shocks may not have a meaningful structural economic interpretation. It is...

Many contemporaneously aggregated variables have stochasticaggregation weights. We compare different forecasts for such variables including univariate forecasts of the aggregate, a multivariate forecast of the aggregate that uses information from the disaggregate components, a forecast which...

A test for the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive (VAR) process with a possible shift and broken linear trend is proposed. The break point is assumed to be known. The setup is a VAR process for cointegrated variables. The tests are not likelihood ratio tests but the deterministic...

It is investigated whether Euro-area variables can be forecast better based on synthetic time series for the pre-Euro period or by using just data from Germany for the pre-Euro period. Our forecast comparison is based on quarterly data for the period 1970Q1 - 2003Q4 for ten macroeconomic...

A system of U.S. and euro area short- and long-term interest rates is analyzed. According to the expectations hypothesis of the term structure the interest rate spreads should be stationary and according to the uncovered interest rate parity the difference between the U.S. and euro area longterm...

In conventional proxy VAR analysis, the shocks of interest are identified by external instruments. This is typically accomplished by considering the covariance of the instruments and the reduced-form residuals. Alternatively, the instruments may be internalized by augmenting the VAR process by...

A central assumption for identifying structural shocks in vector autoregressive (VAR) models via heteroskedasticity is the time-invariance of the impact effects of the shocks. It is shown how that assumption can be tested when longrun restrictions are available for identifying structural shocks....

Studies of the crude oil market based on structural vector autoregressive (VAR) models typically assume a time-invariant model and transmission of shocks or they consider a time-varying model and shock transmission. We assume a heteroskedastic reduced-form VAR model with time-invariant slope...

SFB 649 Discussion Paper 2006-067 Testing for the Cointegrating Rank of a VAR Process with Level Shift and Trend Break Carsten Trenkler* Pentti Saikkonen** Helmut Lütkepohl*** * Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Germany ** University of Helsinki, Finland ***...

Tests for the cointegrating rank of a vector autoregressive process are considered which allow for possible exogenous shifts in the mean of the data generation process. The break points are assumed to be known a priori. It is proposed to estimate and remove the deterministic terms such as mean,...