Conditional variance decomposition for order 2 with pruning (Dynare 5.0)

Stochastic simulations
1

Hi,
congrats to all the team for Dynare 5.0.
When I use it, I do not find the variance decompositions in the results or log file when I run:

stoch_simul(nograph,order=2,pruning,irf=40,conditional_variance_decomposition=[1,4,40],contemporaneous_correlation)

However, it is working great on Dynare 4.6.4

Thank you in advance for your help.

Best,
Jonathan

2

Hi Jonathan,

the manual states that the conditional variance decomposition is available at order<3 and without pruning.

I hope that helps.

3

Thank you Max for your reply.

If so, why it is working under Dynare 4.6.4 but not Dynare 5.0 ?

4

Unfortunately, I can’t offer a detailed answer.

My hunch is that there is a change made by the programmers in the computation of theoretical moments at second order.

By comparing the two manuals from Dynare 4.6.4 and 5.0 I noticed that
Dynare manual 4.6.4 and 5.0 state under conditional_variance_decomposition:

“In case of order=2, Dynare provides a second-order accurate approximation to the true second moments based on the linear terms of the second-order solution (see Kim, Kim, Schaumburg and Sims (2008)).”

Dynare manual 5.0 states under pruning:

" When specified, theoretical moments are based on the pruned state space, i.e. the computation of second moments uses all terms as in Andreasen, Fernández-Villaverde and Rubio-Ramírez (2018), page 10 as opposed to simply providing a second-order accurate result based on the linear solution as in Kim, Kim, Schaumburg and Sims (2008)."

Maybe this is the reason why the pruning option is now incompatible with the conditional_variance_decomposition option.

5

Exactly. That is the reason. Theoretical variance decompositions are available for linear policy functions only. Without pruning at order=2, Dynare will use the first order terms of the policy functions to compute the variance decomposition and other second-order moments. This obviously involves an approximation because we throw away the quadratic terms of the second order solution, but is still second-order accurate, because after squaring the policy rules, these terms would be higher than order 2.

With pruning, Dynare will not do an additional approximation for the second order moments, i.e. keep all the terms. But this means we cannot compute the theoretical variance decomposition.

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6

Thank you Max and Johannes for your detailed explanations.

Does this change from Dynare 4.6.4 to 5.0 means we have to run a mod file for variance decompositions (without pruning, order 1 or 2), and another one with pruning?

Indeed, Dynare 4.6.4 allowed to avoid this effort because (order=2,pruning,conditional_variance_decomposition…) worked well for both purposes.

7

Not necessarily, but you will need a second stoch_simul-command without pruning.

8

I see, I still think the previous solution was better for practical reasons.
Thank you for your help and answers again.
Great work !

9

Thanks for the feedback. I will try to restore a better behavior for 5.1.

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