American Economic Review
ISSN 0002-8282 (Print) | ISSN 1944-7981 (Online)
Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections
American Economic Review
vol. 95,
no. 1, March 2005
(pp. 161–182)
Abstract
This paper introduces methods to compute impulse responses without specification and estimation of the underlying multivariate dynamic system. The central idea consists in estimating local projections at each period of interest rather than extrapolating into increasingly distant horizons from a given model, as it is done with vector autoregressions (VAR). The advantages of local projections are numerous: (1) they can be estimated by simple regression techniques with standard regression packages; (2) they are more robust to misspecification; (3) joint or point-wise analytic inference is simple; and (4) they easily accommodate experimentation with highly nonlinear and flexible specifications that may be impractical in a multivariate context. Therefore, these methods are a natural alternative to estimating impulse responses from VARs. Monte Carlo evidence and an application to a simple, closed-economy, new-Keynesian model clarify these numerous advantages.Citation
Jordà, Òscar. 2005. "Estimation and Inference of Impulse Responses by Local Projections." American Economic Review, 95 (1): 161–182. DOI: 10.1257/0002828053828518Additional Materials
JEL Classification
- C32 Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models: Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
- C53 Forecasting Models; Simulation Methods
- E47 Money and Interest Rates: Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications