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Vector autoregression models with skewness and heavy tails

Sune Karlsson, Stepan Mazur, Hoang Nguyen

arXiv 24 May 2021 · Econometrics · publishedJournal of Economic Dynamics and Control (2022) · 24 citations (OpenAlex)

arXiv:2105.11182 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

With uncertain changes of the economic environment, macroeconomic downturns during recessions and crises can hardly be explained by a Gaussian structural shock. There is evidence that the distribution of macroeconomic variables is skewed and heavy tailed. In this paper, we contribute to the literature by extending a vector autoregression (VAR) model to account for a more realistic assumption of the multivariate distribution of the macroeconomic variables. We propose a general class of generalized hyperbolic skew Student's t distribution with stochastic volatility for the error term in the VAR model that allows us to take into account skewness and heavy tails. Tools for Bayesian inference and model selection using a Gibbs sampler are provided. In an empirical study, we present evidence of skewness and heavy tails for monthly macroeconomic variables. The analysis also gives a clear message that skewness should be taken into account for better predictions during recessions and crises.

Citation extraction

39
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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
1Chiu, C.-W. J., Mumtaz, H., and Pinter, G (2017) Forecasting with VAR models: Fat tails and stochastic volatility1.00084100%
2Clark, T. E. and Ravazzolo, F (2015) Macroeconomic forecasting performance under alternative specifications of time-varying volatility1.00064100%
3Cogley, T. and Sargent, T. J (2005) Drifts and volatilities: Monetary policies and outcomes in the post WWII US0.92843100%
4Cúrdia, V., Del Negro, M., and Greenwald, D. L (2014) Rare shocks, great recessions0.92843100%
5Chan, J. C. and Eisenstat, E (2018) Bayesian model comparison for time-varying parameter VARs with stochastic volatility0.9098575%
6Clark, T. E (2011) Real-time density forecasts from Bayesian vector autoregressions with stochastic volatility0.87462100%
7Primiceri, G. E (2005) Time varying structural vector autoregressions and monetary policy0.84333100%
8Liu, X (2019) On tail fatness of macroeconomic dynamics0.81142100%
9Diebold, F. X. and Mariano, R. S (1995) Comparing predictive accuracy0.64441100%
10Geweke, J. and Amisano, G (2010) Comparing and evaluating Bayesian predictive distributions of asset returns0.51121100%

Showing the top 10 of 39 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
1Modelling and Forecasting Macroeconomic Risk with Time Varying Skewness Stochastic Volatility Models0.64422
2Coarsened Bayesian VARs Correcting BVARs for Incorrect Specification0.51122
3A large non-Gaussian structural VAR with application to Monetary Policy0.40511
4Stochastic Volatility-in-mean VARs with Time-Varying Skewness0.40511