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Local Projections vs. VARs: Lessons From Thousands of DGPs

Dake Li, Mikkel Plagborg-Møller, Christian K. Wolf

arXiv 1 Apr 2021 · Econometrics · publishedJournal of Econometrics (2024) · 79 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2104.00655 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

We conduct a simulation study of Local Projection (LP) and Vector Autoregression (VAR) estimators of structural impulse responses across thousands of data generating processes, designed to mimic the properties of the universe of U.S. macroeconomic data. Our analysis considers various identification schemes and several variants of LP and VAR estimators, employing bias correction, shrinkage, or model averaging. A clear bias-variance trade-off emerges: LP estimators have lower bias than VAR estimators, but they also have substantially higher variance at intermediate and long horizons. Bias-corrected LP is the preferred method if and only if the researcher overwhelmingly prioritizes bias. For researchers who also care about precision, VAR methods are the most attractive -- Bayesian VARs at short and long horizons, and least-squares VARs at intermediate and long horizons.

Citation extraction

43
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Most heavily cited references

The works this paper leans on most, across its whole bibliography — not restricted to papers in our corpus. Ranked by composite intensity, which combines how often a work is mentioned, how many sections mention it, and how much of that falls in the main text rather than the appendix.

ReferenceIntensityMentionsSectionsMain text
1Stock, J. H. & Watson, M. W (2016) Dynamic factor models, factor-augmented vector autoregressions, and structural vector autoregressions in macroeconomics1.000184100%
2Ramey, V. A (2016) Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation1.00064100%
3Herbst, E. & Johannsen, B. K (2023) Bias in Local Projections0.93511582%
4Schorfheide, F (2005) VAR forecasting under misspecification0.92843100%
5Plagborg-Mller, M. & Wolf, C. K (2021) Local Projections and VARs Estimate the Same Impulse Responses0.92314579%
6Pope, A. L (1990) Biases of Estimators in Multivariate Non-Gaussian Autoregressions0.8746467%
7Ramey, V. A (2011) Identifying Government Spending Shocks: It's All in the Timing0.8434475%
8Giannone, D., Lenza, M., & Primiceri, G. E (2015) Prior selection for vector autoregressions0.8435460%
9Kilian, L (1998) Small-sample Confidence Intervals for Impulse Response Functions0.8307457%
10Hansen, B. E (2016) Stein Combination Shrinkage for Vector Autoregressions0.7948450%

Showing the top 10 of 43 scored citations.

Cited by, within the corpus

arXiv econ.EM papers that cite this one, ranked by how heavily they lean on it.

Citing paperIntensityMentionsSections
1Local Projections or VARs? A Primer for Macroeconomists1.00074
2Double Robustness of Local Projections and Some Unpleasant VARithmetic0.92843
30.09cm 24.9522 dpd Opening the Black Box of Local Projections . 0.4cm0.73732
4Enhancing Efficiency of Local Projections Estimation with Volatility Clustering in High-Frequency Data0.64422
5Approximate Minimax Estimation of a Bounded Normal Mean via Stochastic Mirror Ascent0.64422
6Local Projection Inference in High Dimensions0.63083
7Estimator Averaging of Local Projection and VAR Impulse Responses0.51121
8Inference for Local Projections0.40511
9Random Subspace Local Projections0.40511
100.5 in Misspecification-Robust Shrinkage and Selection for VAR Forecasts and IRFs0.40511