IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedlwp/2001-012.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Dynamic forecasts of qualitative variables: a Qual VAR model of U.S. recessions

Author

Listed:
  • Michael J. Dueker

Abstract

This article presents a new Qual VAR model for incorporating information from qualitative and/or discrete variables in vector autoregressions. With a Qual VAR, it is possible to create dynamic forecasts of the qualitative variable using standard VAR projections. Previous forecasting methods for qualitative variables, in contrast, only produce static forecasts. I apply the Qual VAR to forecasting the 2001 business recession out of sample and to analyzing the Romer and Romer (1989) narrative measure of monetary policy contractions as an endogenous variable in a VAR. Out of sample, the model predicts the timing of the 2001 recession quite well relative to the recession probabilities put forth at the time by professional forecasters. Qual VARs -- which include information about the qualitative variable -- can also enhance the quality of density forecasts of the other variables in the system.

Suggested Citation

  • Michael J. Dueker, 2003. "Dynamic forecasts of qualitative variables: a Qual VAR model of U.S. recessions," Working Papers 2001-012, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:2001-012
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.stlouisfed.org/wp/2001/2001-012.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Martin Eichenbaum & Charles L. Evans, 1995. "Some Empirical Evidence on the Effects of Shocks to Monetary Policy on Exchange Rates," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 110(4), pages 975-1009.
    2. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1998. "Predicting U.S. Recessions: Financial Variables As Leading Indicators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 45-61, February.
    3. James D. Hamilton & Oscar Jorda, 2002. "A Model of the Federal Funds Rate Target," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 110(5), pages 1135-1167, October.
    4. Carmen M. Reinhart & Graciela L. Kaminsky, 1999. "The Twin Crises: The Causes of Banking and Balance-of-Payments Problems," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 89(3), pages 473-500, June.
    5. Kaminsky, Graciela L. & Lewis, Karen K., 1996. "Does foreign exchange intervention signal future monetary policy?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 37(2-3), pages 285-312, April.
    6. Bernanke, Ben S & Blinder, Alan S, 1992. "The Federal Funds Rate and the Channels of Monetary Transmission," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 901-921, September.
    7. Eichengreen, Barry & Watson, Mark W & Grossman, Richard S, 1985. "Bank Rate Policy under the Interwar Gold Standard: A Dynamic Probit Model," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 95(379), pages 725-745, September.
    8. Dueker, Michael, 1999. "Conditional Heteroscedasticity in Qualitative Response Models of Time Series: A Gibbs-Sampling Approach to the Bank Prime Rate," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 17(4), pages 466-472, October.
    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. van den Hauwe, Sjoerd & Paap, Richard & van Dijk, Dick, 2013. "Bayesian forecasting of federal funds target rate decisions," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 19-40.
    2. George Monokroussos, 2011. "Dynamic Limited Dependent Variable Modeling and U.S. Monetary Policy," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 43, pages 519-534, March.
    3. Tae-Hwan Kim & Paul Mizen & Thanaset Chevapatrakul, 2008. "Forecasting changes in UK interest rates," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 27(1), pages 53-74.
    4. Rodrigo Alfaro & Helmut Franken & Carlos García & Alejandro Jara, 2003. "Bank Lending Channel and the Monetary Transmission Mechanism: the Case of Chile," Working Papers Central Bank of Chile 223, Central Bank of Chile.
    5. Michael D. Bordo & Michael J. Dueker & David C. Wheelock, 2002. "Aggregate Price Shocks and Financial Instability: A Historical Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 40(4), pages 521-538, October.
    6. Rodrigo Alfaro & Carlos García & Alejandro Jara & Helmut Franken, 2005. "The bank lending channel in Chile," BIS Papers chapters, in: Bank for International Settlements (ed.), Investigating the relationship between the financial and real economy, volume 22, pages 128-45, Bank for International Settlements.
    7. Selva Demiralp & Oscar Jorda, "undated". "The Pavlovian Response of Term Rates to Fed Announcements," Department of Economics 99-06, California Davis - Department of Economics.
    8. Auer, Simone, 2019. "Monetary policy shocks and foreign investment income: Evidence from a large Bayesian VAR," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 93(C), pages 142-166.
    9. Sirchenko Andrei, 2012. "A model for ordinal responses with an application to policy interest rate," EERC Working Paper Series 12/13e, EERC Research Network, Russia and CIS.
    10. Bordo, Michael D. & Dueker, Michael J. & Wheelock, David C., 2003. "Aggregate price shocks and financial stability: the United Kingdom 1796-1999," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 143-169, April.
    11. Ho, W.-M.Wai-Ming, 2004. "The liquidity effects of foreign exchange intervention," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 63(1), pages 179-208, May.
    12. Andrei Sirchenko, 2019. "A regime-switching model for the federal funds rate target," UvA-Econometrics Working Papers 19-01, Universiteit van Amsterdam, Dept. of Econometrics.
    13. Michael Dueker & Katrin Assenmacher-Wesche, 2010. "Forecasting macro variables with a Qual VAR business cycle turning point index," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 42(23), pages 2909-2920.
    14. Kim, Soyoung, 2003. "Monetary policy, foreign exchange intervention, and the exchange rate in a unifying framework," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(2), pages 355-386, August.
    15. Michael J. Dueker & Katrin Wesche, 2001. "European business cycles: new indices and analysis of their synchronicity," Working Papers 1999-019, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    16. JdD Tena & E. Otranto, 2008. "A Realistic Model for Official Interest Rates," Working Paper CRENoS 200802, Centre for North South Economic Research, University of Cagliari and Sassari, Sardinia.
    17. Harding, Don & Pagan, Adrian, 2011. "An Econometric Analysis of Some Models for Constructed Binary Time Series," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(1), pages 86-95.
    18. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues, 1998. "Consistent covariance matrix estimation in probit models with autocorrelated errors," Staff Reports 39, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    19. Benigno, Gianluca, 2004. "Real exchange rate persistence and monetary policy rules," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(3), pages 473-502, April.
    20. Edwards, Sebastian & Vegh, Carlos A., 1997. "Banks and macroeconomic disturbances under predetermined exchange rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 239-278, October.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Forecasting; Recessions; Vector autoregression;
    All these keywords.

    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:fip:fedlwp:2001-012. 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: Anna Oates (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.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.