IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/2503.20668.html

Large Structural VARs with Multiple Sign and Ranking Restrictions

Author

Listed:
  • Joshua Chan
  • Christian Matthes
  • Xuewen Yu

Abstract

Large VARs are increasingly used in structural analysis as a unified framework to study the impacts of multiple structural shocks simultaneously. However, the concurrent identification of multiple shocks using sign and ranking restrictions poses significant practical challenges to the point where existing algorithms cannot be used with such large VARs. To address this, we introduce a new numerically efficient algorithm that facilitates the estimation of impulse responses and related measures in large structural VARs identified with a large number of structural restrictions on impulse responses. The methodology is illustrated using a 35-variable VAR with over 100 sign and ranking restrictions to identify 8 structural shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Joshua Chan & Christian Matthes & Xuewen Yu, 2025. "Large Structural VARs with Multiple Sign and Ranking Restrictions," Papers 2503.20668, arXiv.org.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:2503.20668
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://arxiv.org/pdf/2503.20668
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Bruns & Michele Piffer, 2023. "A new posterior sampler for Bayesian structural vector autoregressive models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1221-1250, November.
    2. Carriero, A. & Kapetanios, G. & Marcellino, M., 2009. "Forecasting exchange rates with a large Bayesian VAR," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 400-417.
    3. Lippi, Marco & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 1993. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances: Comment," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 83(3), pages 644-652, June.
    4. Francesco Furlanetto & Francesco Ravazzolo & Samad Sarferaz, 2019. "Identification of Financial Factors in Economic Fluctuations," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(617), pages 311-337.
    5. Sims, Christopher A, 1980. "Macroeconomics and Reality," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 48(1), pages 1-48, January.
    6. Baumeister, Christiane & Hamilton, James D., 2018. "Inference in structural vector autoregressions when the identifying assumptions are not fully believed: Re-evaluating the role of monetary policy in economic fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 48-65.
    7. Ferre Graeve & Alexei Karas, 2014. "Evaluating Theories Of Bank Runs With Heterogeneity Restrictions," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 12(4), pages 969-996, August.
    8. Marta Bańbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92, January.
    9. Korobilis, Dimitris, 2022. "A new algorithm for structural restrictions in Bayesian vector autoregressions," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 148(C).
    10. Helmut Lütkepohl, 2005. "New Introduction to Multiple Time Series Analysis," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-540-27752-1, January.
    11. Baumeister, Christiane & Hamilton, James D., 2018. "Inference in structural vector autoregressions when the identifying assumptions are not fully believed: Re-evaluating the role of monetary policy in economic fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 100(C), pages 48-65.
    12. Ellahie, Atif & Ricco, Giovanni, 2017. "Government purchases reloaded: Informational insufficiency and heterogeneity in fiscal VARs," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 90(C), pages 13-27.
    13. 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.
    14. Lippi, Marco & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 1994. "VAR analysis, nonfundamental representations, blaschke matrices," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 307-325, July.
    15. Matthew Read, 2022. "Algorithms for inference in SVARs identified with sign and zero restrictions [Identification and inference with ranking restrictions]," The Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 25(3), pages 699-718.
    16. Gary M. Koop, 2013. "Forecasting with Medium and Large Bayesian VARS," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(2), pages 177-203, March.
    17. Canova, Fabio & Paustian, Matthias, 2011. "Business cycle measurement with some theory," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 58(4), pages 345-361.
    18. Joshua C. C. Chan, 2022. "Asymmetric conjugate priors for large Bayesian VARs," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1145-1169, July.
    19. Paul Beaudry & Franck Portier, 2006. "Stock Prices, News, and Economic Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 96(4), pages 1293-1307, September.
    20. Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner & Tao Zha, 2010. "Structural Vector Autoregressions: Theory of Identification and Algorithms for Inference," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 77(2), pages 665-696.
    21. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio‐Ramírez & Daniel F. Waggoner, 2018. "Inference Based on Structural Vector Autoregressions Identified With Sign and Zero Restrictions: Theory and Applications," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 86(2), pages 685-720, March.
    22. Christiane Baumeister & James D. Hamilton, 2015. "Sign Restrictions, Structural Vector Autoregressions, and Useful Prior Information," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 83(5), pages 1963-1999, September.
    23. Dario Caldara & Edward Herbst, 2019. "Monetary Policy, Real Activity, and Credit Spreads: Evidence from Bayesian Proxy SVARs," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 11(1), pages 157-192, January.
    24. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/13388 is not listed on IDEAS
    25. Loria, Francesca & Matthes, Christian & Wang, Mu-Chun, 2022. "Economic theories and macroeconomic reality," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 126(C), pages 105-117.
    26. Canova, Fabio & Nicolo, Gianni De, 2002. "Monetary disturbances matter for business fluctuations in the G-7," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1131-1159, September.
    27. Pooyan Amir‐Ahmadi & Thorsten Drautzburg, 2021. "Identification and inference with ranking restrictions," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), pages 1-39, January.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lukas Berend & Jan Pruser, 2025. "Sharpening Identification in Large Structural VARs Using Narrative Restrictions," Papers 2505.19244, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    2. Markku Lanne & Jani Luoto & Adam Rybarczyk, 2026. "Inference in Tightly Identified and Large-Scale Sign-Restricted SVARs," Papers 2604.22445, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    3. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio-Ram'irez & Daniel Rudolf & Minchul Shin, 2025. "Large SVARs," Papers 2505.23542, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2026.
    4. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Minchul Shin, 2025. "A Gibbs Sampler for Efficient Bayesian Inference in Sign-Identified SVARs," Working Papers 25-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    5. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Minchul Shin, 2025. "Large SVARs," Working Papers 26-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.

    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. Lukas Berend & Jan Pruser, 2025. "Sharpening Identification in Large Structural VARs Using Narrative Restrictions," Papers 2505.19244, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    2. Jan Pruser, 2024. "A large non-Gaussian structural VAR with application to Monetary Policy," Papers 2412.17598, arXiv.org.
    3. Nguyen, Lam, 2025. "Bayesian inference in proxy SVARs with incomplete identification: Re-evaluating the validity of monetary policy instruments," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 155(C).
    4. Fusari, Francesco, 2025. "Identifying monetary policy shocks through external constraints," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 85(C).
    5. Miranda-Agrippino, Silvia & Ricco, Giovanni, 2018. "Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1159, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    6. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Minchul Shin, 2025. "Large SVARs," Working Papers 26-04, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    7. Joshua C. C. Chan, 2022. "Asymmetric conjugate priors for large Bayesian VARs," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 13(3), pages 1145-1169, July.
    8. Herwartz, Helmut & Wang, Shu, 2023. "Point estimation in sign-restricted SVARs based on independence criteria with an application to rational bubbles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 151(C).
    9. Laumer, Sebastian & Violaris, Andreas-Entony, 2024. "Unconventional monetary policy and policy foresight," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    10. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio-Ram'irez & Daniel Rudolf & Minchul Shin, 2025. "Large SVARs," Papers 2505.23542, arXiv.org, revised Apr 2026.
    11. Martin Bruns & Michele Piffer, 2023. "A new posterior sampler for Bayesian structural vector autoregressive models," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 14(4), pages 1221-1250, November.
    12. Giacomini, Raffaella & Kitagawa, Toru & Read, Matthew, 2022. "Robust Bayesian inference in proxy SVARs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 228(1), pages 107-126.
    13. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/27od5pb99881folvtfs8s3k16l is not listed on IDEAS
    14. Matthew Read, 2022. "The Unit-effect Normalisation in Set-identified Structural Vector Autoregressions," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp2022-04, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    15. Hou, Chenghan, 2024. "Large Bayesian SVARs with linear restrictions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 244(1).
    16. Pooyan Amir‐Ahmadi & Thorsten Drautzburg, 2021. "Identification and inference with ranking restrictions," Quantitative Economics, Econometric Society, vol. 12(1), pages 1-39, January.
    17. Jonas E. Arias & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Minchul Shin, 2025. "A Gibbs Sampler for Efficient Bayesian Inference in Sign-Identified SVARs," Working Papers 25-19, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    18. Markku Lanne & Jani Luoto & Adam Rybarczyk, 2026. "Inference in Tightly Identified and Large-Scale Sign-Restricted SVARs," Papers 2604.22445, arXiv.org, revised May 2026.
    19. Foroni, Claudia & Furlanetto, Francesco, 2026. "Explaining deviations from Okun’s law," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 182(C).
    20. Herwartz, Helmut & Rohloff, Hannes & Wang, Shu, 2022. "Proxy SVAR identification of monetary policy shocks - Monte Carlo evidence and insights for the US," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 139(C).
    21. Hristov, Nikolay & Hülsewig, Oliver & Wollmershäuser, Timo, 2020. "Capital flows in the euro area and TARGET2 balances," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 113(C).

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:2503.20668. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://arxiv.org/ .

    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.