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A Dynamic Factor Model for Level and Volatility

Haroon Mumtaz, Sofia Velasco

arXiv 4 Apr 2026 · Econometrics

arXiv:2604.03681 · PDF · DOI · OpenAlex · Extracted main text

Abstract

This paper develops a dynamic factor model in which common level and volatility factors evolve jointly, allowing conditional means and variances to interact endogenously within a large-information setting. The joint evolution of these factors provides a tractable framework for modeling risk, as fluctuations in volatility affect both the dispersion and the location of outcomes, generating state-dependent and asymmetric tail risks in predictive distributions. Volatility is captured by latent common factors that drive co-movement in second moments across a large panel, while heavy-tailed idiosyncratic shocks absorb transitory outliers and isolate persistent uncertainty dynamics. The framework embeds these interactions directly within a factor structure, allowing risk to arise endogenously from the joint dynamics of the system rather than being imposed through reduced-form approaches. Empirically, the model delivers systematic improvements in density forecast accuracy, particularly in the tails of the predictive distribution and at medium horizons. An application to international inflation highlights a dominant global level component in advanced economies and stronger regional and volatility contributions in emerging and developing economies, pointing to substantial heterogeneity in the role of uncertainty across countries.

Citation extraction

40
references
159
in-text mentions
96
distinct cited
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appendix boundary found by appendix_command · 73% of the source is main text. Read the extracted text to check this.

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
1Castelnuovo, E., K. Tuzcuoglu, and L. Uzeda (2025) Sectoral Uncertainty: A Hierarchical-Volatility Approach1.00063100%
2Caldara, D., C. Scotti, and M. Zhong (2021) Macroeconomic and Financial Risks: A Tale of Mean and Volatility0.8434375%
3Carriero, A., T. E. Clark, and M. Marcellino (2018) Measuring Uncertainty and Its Impact on the Economy0.8434375%
4Mumtaz, H (2018) A generalised stochastic volatility in mean VAR self0.8434375%
5Jurado, K., S. C. Ludvigson, and S. Ng (2015) Measuring uncertainty0.73732100%
6Carriero, A., T. E. Clark, and M. Marcellino (2024) Capturing macro-economic tail risks with Bayesian vector autoregressions0.69351100%
Carrierounmatched citation key Carriero0.64441100%
Clarkunmatched citation key Clark0.64441100%
Mumtazunmatched citation key Mumtaz0.64441100%
10Geweke, J (1993) Bayesian Treatment of the Independent Student-t Linear Model0.6443267%

Showing the top 10 of 96 scored citations. 3 of these could not be matched to a bibliography entry, so only the citation key is shown.