IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v35y2019i4p1658-1668.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Mind the gap: A multi-country BVAR benchmark for the Eurosystem projections

Author

Listed:
  • Angelini, Elena
  • Lalik, Magdalena
  • Lenza, Michele
  • Paredes, Joan

Abstract

The Eurosystem staff forecasts are conditional on the financial markets, the global economy and fiscal policy outlook, and include expert judgement. We develop a multi-country BVAR for the four largest countries of the euro area and we show that it provides accurate conditional forecasts of policy relevant variables such as, for example, consumer prices and GDP. The forecasting accuracy and the ability to mimic the path of the Eurosystem projections suggest that the model is a valid benchmark to assess the consistency of the projections with the conditional assumptions. As such, the BVAR can be used to identify possible sources of judgement, based on the gaps between the Eurosystem projections and the historical regularities captured by the model.

Suggested Citation

  • Angelini, Elena & Lalik, Magdalena & Lenza, Michele & Paredes, Joan, 2019. "Mind the gap: A multi-country BVAR benchmark for the Eurosystem projections," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1658-1668.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:35:y:2019:i:4:p:1658-1668
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2018.12.004
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207019300111
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.ijforecast.2018.12.004?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Alexander Chudik & M. Hashem Pesaran, 2016. "Theory And Practice Of Gvar Modelling," Journal of Economic Surveys, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 30(1), pages 165-197, February.
    2. Canova, Fabio & Ciccarelli, Matteo, 2013. "Panel Vector Autoregressive Models: A Survey," CEPR Discussion Papers 9380, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    3. Carlo Altavilla & Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza, 2016. "The Financial and Macroeconomic Effects of the OMT Announcements," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 12(3), pages 29-57, September.
    4. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    5. Robert B. Litterman, 1979. "Techniques of forecasting using vector autoregressions," Working Papers 115, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    6. Bańbura, Marta & Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele, 2015. "Conditional forecasts and scenario analysis with vector autoregressions for large cross-sections," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 739-756.
    7. Koop, Gary & Korobilis, Dimitris, 2010. "Bayesian Multivariate Time Series Methods for Empirical Macroeconomics," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 3(4), pages 267-358, July.
    8. Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele & Momferatou, Daphne & Onorante, Luca, 2014. "Short-term inflation projections: A Bayesian vector autoregressive approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 635-644.
    9. Todd E. Clark & Michael W. McCracken, 2014. "Evaluating Conditional Forecasts from Vector Autoregressions," Working Papers 2014-25, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    10. De Mol, Christine & Giannone, Domenico & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2006. "Forecasting using a large number of predictors: is Bayesian regression a valid alternative to principal components?," Discussion Paper Series 1: Economic Studies 2006,32, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    11. Herbst, Edward & Schorfheide, Frank, 2012. "Evaluating DSGE model forecasts of comovements," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 171(2), pages 152-166.
    12. Amisano, Gianni & Giacomini, Raffaella, 2007. "Comparing Density Forecasts via Weighted Likelihood Ratio Tests," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 177-190, April.
    13. Michele Lenza & Jiri Slacalek, 2024. "How does monetary policy affect income and wealth inequality? Evidence from quantitative easing in the euro area," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(5), pages 746-765, August.
    14. 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.
    15. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2019. "Priors for the Long Run," Journal of the American Statistical Association, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 114(526), pages 565-580, April.
    16. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Prior Selection for Vector Autoregressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 436-451, May.
    17. Iversen, Jens & Laséen, Stefan & Lundvall, Henrik & Söderström, Ulf, 2016. "Real-Time Forecasting for Monetary Policy Analysis: The Case of Sveriges Riksbank," Working Paper Series 318, Sveriges Riksbank (Central Bank of Sweden).
    18. Negro, Marco Del & Schorfheide, Frank, 2013. "DSGE Model-Based Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 57-140, Elsevier.
    19. Sims, Christopher A & Zha, Tao, 1998. "Bayesian Methods for Dynamic Multivariate Models," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 949-968, November.
    20. Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2016. "Large Vector Autoregressions with Stochastic Volatility and Flexible Priors," Working Papers (Old Series) 1617, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
    21. Mario Forni & Marc Hallin & Marco Lippi & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2000. "The Generalized Dynamic-Factor Model: Identification And Estimation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 82(4), pages 540-554, November.
    22. Domit, Sílvia & Monti, Francesca & Sokol, Andrej, 2016. "A Bayesian VAR benchmark for COMPASS," Bank of England working papers 583, Bank of England.
    23. J. Durbin, 2002. "A simple and efficient simulation smoother for state space time series analysis," Biometrika, Biometrika Trust, vol. 89(3), pages 603-616, August.
    24. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1993. "Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number stoc93-1.
    25. Fawcett, Nicholas & Koerber, Lena & Masolo, Riccardo & Waldron, Matthew, 2015. "Evaluating UK point and density forecasts from an estimated DSGE model: the role of off-model information over the financial crisis," Bank of England working papers 538, Bank of England.
    26. Korobilis, D & Pettenuzzo, D, 2016. "Adaptive Minnesota Prior for High-Dimensional Vector Autoregressions," Essex Finance Centre Working Papers 18626, University of Essex, Essex Business School.
    27. Tilmann Gneiting & Roopesh Ranjan, 2011. "Comparing Density Forecasts Using Threshold- and Quantile-Weighted Scoring Rules," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(3), pages 411-422, July.
    28. De Mol, Christine & Giannone, Domenico & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2008. "Forecasting using a large number of predictors: Is Bayesian shrinkage a valid alternative to principal components?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 318-328, October.
    29. 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, September.
    30. Gneiting, Tilmann & Raftery, Adrian E., 2007. "Strictly Proper Scoring Rules, Prediction, and Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 359-378, March.
    31. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 2002. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Diffusion Indexes," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 147-162, April.
    32. Faust, Jon & Wright, Jonathan H., 2008. "Efficient forecast tests for conditional policy forecasts," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 293-303, October.
    33. Gabriel Fagan & Julian Morgan, 2005. "An overview of the structural econometric models of euro-area central banks," Chapters, in: Gabriel Fagan & Julian Morgan (ed.), Econometric Models of the Euro-area Central Banks, chapter 1, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    34. Gneiting, Tilmann & Ranjan, Roopesh, 2011. "Comparing Density Forecasts Using Threshold- and Quantile-Weighted Scoring Rules," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(3), pages 411-422.
    35. Gabriel Fagan & Julian Morgan (ed.), 2005. "Econometric Models of the Euro-area Central Banks," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 3918.
    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. Olga Korotkikh, 2020. "A Multi-Country BVAR Model for the External Sector," Russian Journal of Money and Finance, Bank of Russia, vol. 79(4), pages 98-112, December.
    2. William Ginn, 2024. "Agricultural fluctuations and global economic conditions," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 160(3), pages 1037-1056, August.
    3. Richard K. Crump & Stefano Eusepi & Domenico Giannone & Eric Qian & Argia M. Sbordone, 2021. "A Large Bayesian VAR of the United States Economy," Staff Reports 976, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    4. Michele Lenza & Jiri Slacalek, 2024. "How does monetary policy affect income and wealth inequality? Evidence from quantitative easing in the euro area," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(5), pages 746-765, August.
    5. Cimadomo, Jacopo & Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele & Monti, Francesca & Sokol, Andrej, 2022. "Nowcasting with large Bayesian vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 500-519.
    6. Harry Turunen & Anastasia Zhutova & Matthieu Lemoine, 2023. "Stochastic Simulation of the FR-BDF Model and an Assessment of Uncertainty around Conditional Forecasts," Working papers 920, Banque de France.
    7. Cascaldi-Garcia, Danilo & Ferreira, Thiago R.T. & Giannone, Domenico & Modugno, Michele, 2024. "Back to the present: Learning about the euro area through a now-casting model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 661-686.
    8. Yu Bai & Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2022. "Macroeconomic forecasting in a multi‐country context," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(6), pages 1230-1255, September.
    9. Angela Capolongo & Claudia Pacella, 2021. "Forecasting inflation in the euro area: countries matter!," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2477-2499, November.
    10. Chalmovianský, Jakub & Porqueddu, Mario & Sokol, Andrej, 2020. "Weigh(t)ing the basket: aggregate and component-based inflation forecasts for the euro area," Working Paper Series 2501, European Central Bank.
    11. Ganics, Gergely & Odendahl, Florens, 2021. "Bayesian VAR forecasts, survey information, and structural change in the euro area," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 971-999.
    12. Sokol, Andrej, 2021. "Fan charts 2.0: flexible forecast distributions with expert judgement," Working Paper Series 2624, European Central Bank.
    13. Byoung Hark Yoo, 2023. "Conditional Forecasting With a Bayesian Vector Autoregression: Working Paper 2023-08," Working Papers 59629, Congressional Budget Office.
    14. Zakipour-Saber, Shayan, 2019. "Forecasting in the euro area: The role of the US long rate," Economic Letters 5/EL/19, Central Bank of Ireland.
    15. Ciccarelli, Matteo & Darracq Pariès, Matthieu & Priftis, Romanos & Angelini, Elena & Bańbura, Marta & Bokan, Nikola & Fagan, Gabriel & Gumiel, José Emilio & Kornprobst, Antoine & Lalik, Magdalena & Mo, 2024. "ECB macroeconometric models for forecasting and policy analysis," Occasional Paper Series 344, European Central Bank.

    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. Bańbura, Marta & Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele, 2015. "Conditional forecasts and scenario analysis with vector autoregressions for large cross-sections," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 739-756.
    2. Miranda-Agrippino, Silvia & Ricco, Giovanni, 2018. "Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1159, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    3. Berg, Tim O. & Henzel, Steffen R., 2015. "Point and density forecasts for the euro area using Bayesian VARs," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1067-1095.
    4. Peter McAdam & Anders Warne, 2024. "Density forecast combinations: The real‐time dimension," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 1153-1172, August.
    5. Karlsson, Sune, 2013. "Forecasting with Bayesian Vector Autoregression," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 791-897, Elsevier.
    6. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/27od5pb99881folvtfs8s3k16l is not listed on IDEAS
    7. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/27od5pb99881folvtfs8s3k16l is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Knut Are Aastveit & Andrea Carriero & Todd E. Clark & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2017. "Have Standard VARS Remained Stable Since the Crisis?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(5), pages 931-951, August.
    9. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Prior Selection for Vector Autoregressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 436-451, May.
    10. Cimadomo, Jacopo & Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele & Monti, Francesca & Sokol, Andrej, 2022. "Nowcasting with large Bayesian vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 500-519.
    11. Rostagno, Massimo & Altavilla, Carlo & Carboni, Giacomo & Lemke, Wolfgang & Motto, Roberto & Saint Guilhem, Arthur & Yiangou, Jonathan, 2019. "A tale of two decades: the ECB’s monetary policy at 20," Working Paper Series 2346, European Central Bank.
    12. Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele & Momferatou, Daphne & Onorante, Luca, 2014. "Short-term inflation projections: A Bayesian vector autoregressive approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 635-644.
    13. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    14. Tomasz Woźniak, 2016. "Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," Australian Economic Review, The University of Melbourne, Melbourne Institute of Applied Economic and Social Research, vol. 49(3), pages 365-380, September.
    15. Dimitrios P. Louzis, 2017. "Macroeconomic and credit forecasts during the Greek crisis using Bayesian VARs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 569-598, September.
    16. Chris Bloor & Troy Matheson, 2010. "Analysing shock transmission in a data-rich environment: a large BVAR for New Zealand," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 39(2), pages 537-558, October.
    17. Reif Magnus, 2021. "Macroeconomic uncertainty and forecasting macroeconomic aggregates," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 25(2), pages 1-20, April.
    18. Antonio M. Conti & Andrea Nobili & Federico M. Signoretti, 2018. "Bank capital constraints, lending supply and economic activity," Temi di discussione (Economic working papers) 1199, Bank of Italy, Economic Research and International Relations Area.
    19. Marek Jarociński & Bartosz Maćkowiak, 2017. "Granger Causal Priority and Choice of Variables in Vector Autoregressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 319-329, May.
    20. Tallman, Ellis W. & Zaman, Saeed, 2020. "Combining survey long-run forecasts and nowcasts with BVAR forecasts using relative entropy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 373-398.
    21. Korobilis, Dimitris & Pettenuzzo, Davide, 2019. "Adaptive hierarchical priors for high-dimensional vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 241-271.
    22. Tomasz Wozniak, 2016. "Rare Events and Risk Perception: Evidence from Fukushima Accident," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 2021, The University of Melbourne.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Multi-country model; Cross-checking; Conditional forecast; Euro area; Density forecast judgement;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    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:eee:intfor:v:35:y:2019:i:4:p:1658-1668. 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: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast .

    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.