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The Cointegrated VAR Model: Methodology and Applications

by Katarina Juselius

Oxford University Press, 2006

List Price $55.00, Estima's Price $44.00

Overview

We are pleased to make Katarina Juselius' new book "The Cointegrated VAR Model" available to users of RATS and CATS at a discounted price. As noted below, Katarina wrote this book in conjunction with the development of the new Version 2.0 of CATS. If you use, or plan to use, CATS, you'll want this book.

RATS Handbook for The Cointegrated VAR Model

A PDF "Handbook" to accompany The Cointegrated VAR Model is now available as part of a freely downloadable zip file. The handbook describes how to use RATS (6.2 or later) and CATS 2.0 to reproduce the results from the textbook.

This zip files includes the example programs and data file with the PDF book describing the steps taking and discussing the results. Our thanks to Katarina Juselius for providing the original code used in writing the textbook, on which the programs are based.

Comments by the Author, Katarina Juselius

The Maximum Likelihood analysis of the cointegrated VAR model was developed over the last twenty years by (primarily) Sören Johansen of the University of Copenhagen, in close cooperation with Katarina Juselius, who focused on the applied side.

The idea of cointegration quickly became a real hit: The market was flooded by cointegration analyses, as it seemed the proper way to handle the unit root nonstationarity typical of most (macro)economic data.

However, it became increasingly obvious that many applications were flawed in various ways, and very few exploited the full potential of the cointegrated VAR methodology. Thus, there seemed to be a need for a textbook that fully reflects the mix of theory and applications that is the trademark of the cointegrated VAR approach.

While working on the empirical methodology of the book, it became obvious that the old version of CATS in RATS had to be modified to incorporate the new ideas presented in The Cointegrated VAR Model: Methodology and Application.

Jonathan Dennis rewrote the CATS code, working closely with Katarina Juselius to ensure that the structure of the CATS program followed the methodological structure of the book. In this sense, The Cointegrated VAR Model: Methodology and Application and CATS in RATS fit together like glove and hand.

For anyone who would like to challenge old dogmas and explore exciting new empirical features in today's fast changing world, combining "CATS in RATS" with this book should be an obvious choice. This is partly because the philosophy behind the book is that it is more important to find out that you are wrong in your beliefs (so that you can become wiser) than to demonstrate that you are right.

Over the last four years we have been teaching a summer school based on this philosophy, using "CATS in RATS" along with the book, and this has proven to be a tremendous success. We are convinced that the two together make for something much more powerful than either of them in isolation.

Publisher's Description of the Textbook

This valuable text provides a comprehensive introduction to VAR modelling and how it can be applied. In particular, the author focuses on the properties of the Cointegrated VAR model and its implications for macroeconomic inference when data are non-stationary. The text provides a number of insights into the links between statistical econometric modelling and economic theory and gives a thorough treatment of identification of the long-run and short-run structure as well as of the common stochastic trends and the impulse response functions, providing in each case illustrations of applicability.

This book presents the main ingredients of the Copenhagen School of Time-Series Econometrics in a transparent and coherent framework. The distinguishing feature of this school is that econometric theory and applications have been developed in close cooperation. The guiding principle is that good econometric work should take econometrics, institutions, and economics seriously. The author uses a single data set throughout most of the book to guide the reader through the econometric theory while also revealing the full implications for the underlying economic model. To ensure full understanding the book concludes with the introduction of two new data sets to combine readers understanding of econometric theory and economic models, with economic reality.

Contents

Bridging economics and econometrics

1. Introduction
2. Models and Relations in Economics and Econometrics
3. The Probability Approach in Econometrics and the VAR

Specifying the VAR Model

4. The Unrestricted VAR
5. The Cointegrated VAR Model
6. Deterministic Components in the I(1) Model
7. Estimation in the I(1) Model
8. Determination of Cointegration Rank

Testing Hypotheses on cointegration

9. Recursive Tests of Constancy
10. Testing Restrictions on Beta
11. Testing Restrictions on Alpha

Identification

12. Identification of the Long-Run Structure
13. Identification of the Short-Run Structure
14. Identification of Common Trends
15. Identification of a Structural MA Model

The I(2) Model

16. Analyzing I(2) Data with the I(1) Model
17. The I(2) Model: specification and estimation
18. Testing Hypotheses in the I(2) Model

A Methodological Approach

19. Specific-to-General and General-to-Specific
20. Wage, Price, and Unemployment Dynamics
21. Foreign Transmission Effects: Denmark versus Germany
22. Collecting the Threads

Appendix A: The Asymptotic Tables for Cointegration Rank
Appendix B: A Roadmap for Writing an Empirical Paper