Estimation in non-linear non-Gaussian state space models with precision-based methods

Vol: 
13/2012
Author name: 
Chan JCC
Strachan R
Year: 
2012
Month: 
March
Abstract: 

In recent years state space models, particularly the linear Gaussian version, have become the standard framework for analyzing macroeconomic and financial data. However, many theoretically motivated models imply non-linear or non-Gaussian specifications ?or both. Existing methods for estimating such models are computationally intensive, and often cannot be applied to models with more than a few states. Building upon recent developments in precision-based algorithms, we propose a general approach to estimating high-dimensional non-linear non-Gaussian state space models. The baseline algorithm approximates the conditional distribution of the states by a multivariate Gaussian or t density, which is then used for posterior simulation. We further develop this baseline algorithm to construct more sophisticated samplers with attractive properties: one based on the accept-reject Metropolis-Hastings (ARMH) algorithm, and another adaptive collapsed sampler inspired by the cross-entropy method. To illustrate the proposed approach, we investigate the effect of the zero lower bound of interest rate on monetary transmission mechanism.

Publication file: 

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