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When is Nonfundamentalness in VARs A Real Problem? An Application to News Shocks

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  • Portier, Franck
  • Beaudry, Paul
  • Feve, Patrick
  • Guay, Alain

Abstract

When a structural model has a nonfundamental VAR representation, standard SVAR techniques cannot be used to properly identify the effects of structural shocks. This problem is known to potentially arise when one of the structural shocks represents news about the future. However, as we shall show, in many cases the nonfundamental representation of a time series may be very close to its fundamental representation implying that standard SVAR techniques may provide a very good approximation of the effects of structural shocks even when the nonfundamentalness is formally present. This leads to the question: When is nonfundamentalness a real problem? In this paper we derive and illustrate a diagnostic based on a R2 which provides a simple means of detecting whether nonfundamentalness is likely to be a quantitatively important problem in an applied settings. We use the identification of technological news shocks in US data as our running example.

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  • Portier, Franck & Beaudry, Paul & Feve, Patrick & Guay, Alain, 2015. "When is Nonfundamentalness in VARs A Real Problem? An Application to News Shocks," CEPR Discussion Papers 10763, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:10763
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    Cited by:

    1. Paccagnini, Alessia, 2017. "Dealing with Misspecification in DSGE Models: A Survey," MPRA Paper 82914, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    2. Christoph Görtz & John D. Tsoukalas & Francesco Zanetti, 2022. "News Shocks under Financial Frictions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 210-243, October.
    3. Soccorsi, Stefano, 2016. "Measuring nonfundamentalness for structural VARs," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 71(C), pages 86-101.
    4. Silvia Miranda-Agrippino & Sinem Hacioglu Hoke & Kristina Bluwstein, 2018. "When Creativity Strikes: News Shocks and Business Cycle Fluctuations," Discussion Papers 1823, Centre for Macroeconomics (CFM).
    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. Hecq, A.W. & Lieb, L.M. & Telg, J.M.A., 2015. "Identification of Mixed Causal-Noncausal Models : How Fat Should We Go?," Research Memorandum 035, Maastricht University, Graduate School of Business and Economics (GSBE).
    7. Iskrev, Nikolay, 2018. "Are asset price data informative about news shocks? A DSGE perspective," Working Paper Series 2161, European Central Bank.
    8. Korobilis, Dimitris & Pettenuzzo, Davide, 2019. "Adaptive hierarchical priors for high-dimensional vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 241-271.
    9. Deokwoo Nam & Jian Wang, 2019. "Mood Swings and Business Cycles: Evidence from Sign Restrictions," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 51(6), pages 1623-1649, September.
    10. Fabio Canova & Mehdi Hamidi Sahneh, 2018. "Are Small-Scale SVARs Useful for Business Cycle Analysis? Revisiting Nonfundamentalness," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 16(4), pages 1069-1093.
    11. Miranda-Agrippino, Silvia & Hacıoğlu Hoke, Sinem & Bluwstein, Kristina, 2020. "Patents, News, and Business Cycles," CEPR Discussion Papers 15062, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    12. Iskrev, Nikolay, 2019. "On the sources of information about latent variables in DSGE models," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 119(C), pages 318-332.
    13. Mario Forni & Luca Gambetti & Luca Sala, 2016. "VAR Information and the Empirical Validation of DSGE Models," Center for Economic Research (RECent) 119, University of Modena and Reggio E., Dept. of Economics "Marco Biagi".
    14. Patrick Fève & Alain Guay, 2019. "Sentiments in SVARs," The Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 129(618), pages 877-896.
    15. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2019. "Is There A Single Shock That Drives The Majority Of Business Cycle Fluctuations?," Working Papers 1906, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    16. Paul Beaudry & Patrick Feve & Alain Guay & Franck Portier, 2019. "When is Nonfundamentalness in SVARs a Real Problem?," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 34, pages 221-243, October.
    17. Nadav Ben Zeev, 2018. "The Tfp Channel Of Credit Supply Shocks," Working Papers 1802, Ben-Gurion University of the Negev, Department of Economics.
    18. Nelimarkka, Jaakko, 2017. "Evidence on News Shocks under Information Deficiency," MPRA Paper 80850, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    19. Ma, Xiaohan, 2018. "Investment specific technology, news, sentiment, and fluctuations: Evidence from nowcast data," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 57(C), pages 55-70.
    20. Nikolay Iskrev, 2021. "Spectral decomposition of the information about latent variables in dynamic macroeconomic models," Working Papers w202105, Banco de Portugal, Economics and Research Department.
    21. Claudio, João C. & von Schweinitz, Gregor, 2020. "On the international dissemination of technology news shocks," IWH Discussion Papers 25/2020, Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH).
    22. Alain Hecq & Sean Telg & Lenard Lieb, 2017. "Do Seasonal Adjustments Induce Noncausal Dynamics in Inflation Rates?," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 5(4), pages 1-22, October.
    23. Daniele Siena, 2017. "What's News in International Business Cycles," 2017 Meeting Papers 1206, Society for Economic Dynamics.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles; News; Nonfundamentalness; Svar;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E3 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles

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