IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/aea/jecper/v15y2001i4p101-115.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Vector Autoregressions

Author

Listed:
  • James H. Stock
  • Mark W. Watson

Abstract

This paper critically reviews the use of vector autoregressions (VARs) for four tasks: data description, forecasting, structural inference, and policy analysis. The paper begins with a review of VAR analysis, highlighting the differences between reduced-form VARs, recursive VARs and structural VARs. A three variable VAR that includes the unemployment rate, price inflation and the short term interest rate is used to show how VAR methods are used for the four tasks. The paper concludes that VARs have proven to be powerful and reliable tools for data description and forecasting, but have been less useful for structural inference and policy analysis.

Suggested Citation

  • James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2001. "Vector Autoregressions," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 15(4), pages 101-115, Fall.
    • Handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:15:y:2001:i:4:p:101-115
    Note: DOI: 10.1257/jep.15.4.101
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.aeaweb.org/articles.php?doi=10.1257/jep.15.4.101
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    2. Christopher A. Sims, 1986. "Are forecasting models usable for policy analysis?," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, vol. 10(Win), pages 2-16.
    3. Ben S. Bernanke & Ilian Mihov, 1998. "Measuring Monetary Policy," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 113(3), pages 869-902.
    4. Christopher A. Sims, 1993. "A Nine-Variable Probabilistic Macroeconomic Forecasting Model," NBER Chapters, in: Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting, pages 179-212, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    5. A. R. Pagan & J. C. Robertson, 1998. "Structural Models Of The Liquidity Effect," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 202-217, May.
    6. Christoffersen, Peter F & Diebold, Francis X, 1998. "Cointegration and Long-Horizon Forecasting," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 450-458, October.
    7. Richard Clarida & Jordi Galí & Mark Gertler, 2000. "Monetary Policy Rules and Macroeconomic Stability: Evidence and Some Theory," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 115(1), pages 147-180.
    8. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1993. "Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number stoc93-1, March.
    9. Litterman, Robert B, 1986. "Forecasting with Bayesian Vector Autoregressions-Five Years of Experience," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 4(1), pages 25-38, January.
    10. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    11. Cochrane, John H., 1998. "What do the VARs mean? Measuring the output effects of monetary policy," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 277-300, April.
    12. Sims, Christopher A, 1998. "Comment on Glenn Rudebusch's "Do Measures of Monetary Policy in a VAR Make Sense?"," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 933-941, November.
    13. Sims, Christopher A., 1992. "Interpreting the macroeconomic time series facts : The effects of monetary policy," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 36(5), pages 975-1000, June.
    14. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1999. "Monetary policy shocks: What have we learned and to what end?," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & M. Woodford (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 2, pages 65-148, Elsevier.
    15. Mark Gertler & Jordi Gali & Richard Clarida, 1999. "The Science of Monetary Policy: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 37(4), pages 1661-1707, December.
    16. Christiano, Lawrence J. & Eichenbaum, Martin & Evans, Charles L., 1997. "Sticky price and limited participation models of money: A comparison," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(6), pages 1201-1249, June.
    17. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W. (ed.), 1993. "Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226774886, December.
    18. McNees, Stephen K., 1990. "The role of judgment in macroeconomic forecasting accuracy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 6(3), pages 287-299, October.
    19. John B. Taylor, 1999. "Monetary Policy Rules," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number tayl99-1, March.
    20. Faust, Jon & Leeper, Eric M, 1997. "When Do Long-Run Identifying Restrictions Give Reliable Results?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(3), pages 345-353, July.
    21. Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 1999. "Conditional Forecasts In Dynamic Multivariate Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 639-651, November.
    22. Wright, Jonathan H, 2000. "Confidence Intervals for Univariate Impulse Responses with a Near Unit Root," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 18(3), pages 368-373, July.
    23. Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1998. "Do Measures of Monetary Policy in a VAR Make Sense?," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 907-931, November.
    24. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    25. Lucas, Robert Jr, 1976. "Econometric policy evaluation: A critique," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 1(1), pages 19-46, January.
    26. Olivier Blanchard & Roberto Perotti, 2002. "An Empirical Characterization of the Dynamic Effects of Changes in Government Spending and Taxes on Output," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 117(4), pages 1329-1368.
    27. Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S., 1999. "What are the Effects of Monetary Policy on Output? Results from an Agnostic Identification Procedure," Other publications TiSEM 2e0fa8dd-ead5-4c6b-97cb-1, Tilburg University, School of Economics and Management.
    28. Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1998. "Do Measures of Monetary Policy in a VAR Make Sense? A Reply," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 943-948, November.
    29. Bernanke, Ben S., 1986. "Alternative explanations of the money-income correlation," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 49-99, January.
    30. Lutz Kilian, 1999. "Finite-Sample Properties of Percentile and Percentile-t Bootstrap Confidence Intervals for Impulse Responses," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 652-660, November.
    31. Eric M. Leeper & Christopher A. Sims & Tao Zha, 1996. "What Does Monetary Policy Do?," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 27(2), pages 1-78.
    32. Olivier J. Blanchard & Mark W. Watson, 1986. "Are Business Cycles All Alike?," NBER Chapters, in: The American Business Cycle: Continuity and Change, pages 123-180, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    33. Christopher A. Sims, 1982. "Policy Analysis with Econometric Models," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 13(1), pages 107-164.
    34. Litterman, Robert, 1986. "Forecasting with Bayesian vector autoregressions -- Five years of experience : Robert B. Litterman, Journal of Business and Economic Statistics 4 (1986) 25-38," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 2(4), pages 497-498.
    35. Taylor, John B., 1993. "Discretion versus policy rules in practice," Carnegie-Rochester Conference Series on Public Policy, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 195-214, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Leeper, Eric M. & Zha, Tao, 2003. "Modest policy interventions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(8), pages 1673-1700, November.
    2. Lutz Kilian, 2013. "Structural vector autoregressions," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 22, pages 515-554, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    3. Goto, Shingo, 2000. "The Fed's Effect on Excess Returns and Inflation is Much Bigger Than You Think," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt04f1z5hb, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
    4. Hanson, Michael S., 2006. "Varying monetary policy regimes: A vector autoregressive investigation," Journal of Economics and Business, Elsevier, vol. 58(5-6), pages 407-427.
    5. Ramey, V.A., 2016. "Macroeconomic Shocks and Their Propagation," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 71-162, Elsevier.
    6. Jean Boivin & Marc Giannoni, 2002. "Assessing changes in the monetary transmission mechanism: a VAR approach," Economic Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 8(May), pages 97-111.
    7. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2005_017 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Wickens, Michael R. & Polito, Vito, 2008. "Optimal Monetary Policy using a VAR," CEPR Discussion Papers 6957, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    9. Monticello, Carlo & Tristani, Oreste, 1999. "What does the single monetary policy do? A SVAR benchmark for the European Central Bank," Working Paper Series 0002, European Central Bank.
    10. Bjørnland, Hilde C. & Leitemo, Kai, 2009. "Identifying the interdependence between US monetary policy and the stock market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 275-282, March.
    11. Gottschalk, Jan, 2001. "An Introduction into the SVAR Methodology: Identification, Interpretation and Limitations of SVAR models," Kiel Working Papers 1072, Kiel Institute for the World Economy (IfW Kiel).
    12. Gossé, Jean-Baptiste & Guillaumin, Cyriac, 2013. "L’apport de la représentation VAR de Christopher A. Sims à la science économique," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 89(4), pages 309-319, Décembre.
    13. Croushore, Dean & Evans, Charles L., 2006. "Data revisions and the identification of monetary policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 53(6), pages 1135-1160, September.
    14. Bernanke, Ben S. & Boivin, Jean, 2003. "Monetary policy in a data-rich environment," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(3), pages 525-546, April.
    15. Uhlig, Harald, 2005. "What are the effects of monetary policy on output? Results from an agnostic identification procedure," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 52(2), pages 381-419, March.
    16. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 2016. "Dynamic Factor Models, Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressions, and Structural Vector Autoregressions in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 415-525, Elsevier.
    17. Rudebusch, Glenn D, 2005. "Assessing the Lucas Critique in Monetary Policy Models," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(2), pages 245-272, April.
    18. Fabio Canova & Joaquim Pires Pina, 1998. "Monetary policy misspecification in VAR models," Economics Working Papers 420, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Sep 1999.
    19. Bjørnland, Hilde C. & Leitemo, Kai, 2009. "Identifying the interdependence between US monetary policy and the stock market," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(2), pages 275-282, March.
    20. James H. James & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Implications of Dynamic Factor Models for VAR Analysis," Working Papers 2005-2, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    21. Faust, Jon & Rogers, John H., 2003. "Monetary policy's role in exchange rate behavior," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 50(7), pages 1403-1424, October.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

    Lists

    This item is featured on the following reading lists, Wikipedia, or ReplicationWiki pages:
    1. Vector Autoregressions (JEP 2001) in ReplicationWiki

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:aea:jecper:v:15:y:2001:i:4:p:101-115. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Michael P. Albert (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/aeaaaea.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.