Large aggregation interval asymptotics are used to investigate the relation between Granger causality in disaggregated vector autoregressions (VARs) and associated contemporaneous correlation among innovations of the aggregated system. Our approach allows us to better understand the informational content in non-diagonal error covariance matrices, which play an important role in structural VAR a...

One of the most challenging problems in econometrics is the prediction of turning points in financial time series. We compare ARMAand Vector-Autoregressive (VAR-) models by examining their abilities to predict turning points in monthly time series. An approach proposed by Wecker[1] and enhanced by Kling[2] forms the basis to explicitly incorporate uncertainty in the forecasts by producing proba...

We study the dynamic relation between aggregate mutual fund flow and market-wide volatility. Using daily flow data and a VAR approach, we find that market volatility is negatively related to concurrent and lagged flow. A structural VAR impulse response analysis suggests that shock in flow has a negative impact on market volatility: An inflow (outflow) shock predicts a decline (an increase) in v...

The ”irrational exuberance” of the stock market in the late 1990’s lead to a discussion of the appropriate policy response by monetary authorities. Any response would be contingent on the stock market reaction to policy shocks. In this study I employ a structural VAR to estimate the response of the stock market returns to innovations in the federal funds rate. The effect of the stock market on ...

The World Jurist Association’s Conference on International Arbitration and ADR – the Impact on the Rule of Law was held April 5 – 7, 2011 in Grand Baie, Mauritius. This Conference brought together 150 distinguished delegates and speakers from 20 countries, representing every region of the world. Our Host Committee was chaired by Honorable YKJ Yeung Sik Yuen, GOSK, Chief Justice of the Supreme C...

We carry out a semi-structural analysis aiming at estimating the macroeconomic effects of shocks to inflation expectations. We estimate a Structural Factor Model for the euro area, which includes more than 200 quarterly variables. By using such a wide information set we are able to: 1) identify structural shocks which a small-scale VAR would not be able to retrieve; 2) avoid any variable select...

Japanese Angelica Root prepared from Angelica acutiloba var. acutiloba and A. acutiloba var. sugiyamae, known in Japan as “Toki” and “Hokkai Toki”, is an important crude drug used in Kampo medicine (traditional Japanese medicine). However, since these Angelica varieties have recently outcrossed with each other, it is unclear whether Japanese Angelica Root sold for use in Kampo medicine is a pur...

This note corrects a mistake in the estimation algorithm of the time-varying structural vector autoregression model of Primiceri (2005) and proposes a new algorithm that correctly applies the procedure proposed by Kim, Shephard, and Chib (1998) to the estimation of VAR or DSGE models with stochastic volatility. Relative to Primiceri (2005), the correct algorithm involves a different ordering of...

This paper estimates a structural VAR model for key Swiss macroeconomics variables with quarterly data from 1974-1999 which allows the identification of a monetary shock with plausible impulse response patterns. Conditional forecasts generated by this model are used to analyse monetary policy in the in the new policy framework of SNB adopted in late 1999. In this exercise we attempt to take int...

[1] In this study, the performance of inverse threedimensional variational assimilation (I3D-Var) is investigated in terms of dissipation process for an advection-diffusion problem. The performance of I3D-Var becomes poorer with larger diffusion coefficients. However, even for strong dissipation, the cost function during early iterations in the I3D-Var decreases still much faster than it does i...