sort_impactmats: Sort and sign change the columns of the impact matrices of...

In sstvars: Toolkit for Reduced Form and Structural Smooth Transition Vector Autoregressive Models

Sort and sign change the columns of the impact matrices of the regimes so that the first element in each column of B_1 is positive and in a decreasing order.

Description

sort_impactmats sorts and sign changes the columns of the impact matrices of the regimes so that the first element in each column of B_1 is positive and in a decreasing order. The same reordering and sign changes performed to the columns of B_1 are applied to the rest of the impact matrices to obtain an observationally equivalent model. For skewed t models, also the signs of the skewness parameters corresponding to the columns whose signs are changed are changed accordingly.

Usage

sort_impactmats(
  p,
  M,
  d,
  params,
  weight_function = c("relative_dens", "logistic", "mlogit", "exponential", "threshold",
    "exogenous"),
  weightfun_pars = NULL,
  cond_dist = c("Gaussian", "Student", "ind_Student", "ind_skewed_t"),
  AR_constraints = NULL,
  mean_constraints = NULL,
  weight_constraints = NULL
)

Arguments

p	a positive integer specifying the autoregressive order
M	a positive integer specifying the number of regimes
params	a real valued vector specifying the parameter values. Should have the form \theta = (\phi_{1},...,\phi_{M},\varphi_1,...,\varphi_M,\sigma,\alpha,\nu), where (see exceptions below): \phi_{m} = the (d \times 1) intercept (or mean) vector of the mth regime. \varphi_m = (vec(A_{m,1}),...,vec(A_{m,p})) (pd^2 \times 1). if cond_dist="Gaussian" or "Student": \sigma = (vech(\Omega_1),...,vech(\Omega_M)) (Md(d + 1)/2 \times 1). if cond_dist="ind_Student" or "ind_skewed_t": \sigma = (vec(B_1),...,vec(B_M) (Md^2 \times 1). \alpha = the (a\times 1) vector containing the transition weight parameters (see below). if cond_dist = "Gaussian"): Omit \nu from the parameter vector. if cond_dist="Student": \nu > 2 is the single degrees of freedom parameter. if cond_dist="ind_Student": \nu = (\nu_1,...,\nu_d) (d \times 1), \nu_i > 2. if cond_dist="ind_skewed_t": \nu = (\nu_1,...,\nu_d,\lambda_1,...,\lambda_d) (2d \times 1), \nu_i > 2 and \lambda_i \in (0, 1). For models with... weight_function="relative_dens": \alpha = (\alpha_1,...,\alpha_{M-1}) (M - 1 \times 1), where \alpha_m (1\times 1), m=1,...,M-1 are the transition weight parameters. weight_function="logistic": \alpha = (c,\gamma) (2 \times 1), where c\in\mathbb{R} is the location parameter and \gamma >0 is the scale parameter. weight_function="mlogit": \alpha = (\gamma_1,...,\gamma_M) ((M-1)k\times 1), where \gamma_m (k\times 1), m=1,...,M-1 contains the multinomial logit-regression coefficients of the mth regime. Specifically, for switching variables with indices in I\subset\lbrace 1,...,d\rbrace, and with \tilde{p}\in\lbrace 1,...,p\rbrace lags included, \gamma_m contains the coefficients for the vector z_{t-1} = (1,\tilde{z}_{\min\lbrace I\rbrace},...,\tilde{z}_{\max\lbrace I\rbrace}), where \tilde{z}_{i} =(y_{it-1},...,y_{it-\tilde{p}}), i\in I. So k=1+|I|\tilde{p} where |I| denotes the number of elements in I. weight_function="exponential": \alpha = (c,\gamma) (2 \times 1), where c\in\mathbb{R} is the location parameter and \gamma >0 is the scale parameter. weight_function="threshold": \alpha = (r_1,...,r_{M-1}) (M-1 \times 1), where r_1,...,r_{M-1} are the thresholds. weight_function="exogenous": Omit \alpha from the parameter vector. AR_constraints: Replace \varphi_1,...,\varphi_M with \psi as described in the argument AR_constraints. mean_constraints: Replace \phi_{1},...,\phi_{M} with (\mu_{1},...,\mu_{g}) where \mu_i, \ (d\times 1) is the mean parameter for group i and g is the number of groups. weight_constraints: If linear constraints are imposed, replace \alpha with \xi as described in the argument weigh_constraints. If weight functions parameters are imposed to be fixed values, simply drop \alpha from the parameter vector. identification="heteroskedasticity": \sigma = (vec(W),\lambda_2,...,\lambda_M), where W (d\times d) and \lambda_m (d\times 1), m=2,...,M, satisfy \Omega_1=WW' and \Omega_m=W\Lambda_mW', \Lambda_m=diag(\lambda_{m1},...,\lambda_{md}), \lambda_{mi}>0, m=2,...,M, i=1,...,d. B_constraints: For models identified by heteroskedasticity, replace vec(W) with \tilde{vec}(W) that stacks the columns of the matrix W in to vector so that the elements that are constrained to zero are not included. For models identified by non-Gaussianity, replace vec(B_1),...,vec(B_M) with similarly with vectorized versions B_m so that the elements that are constrained to zero are not included. Above, \phi_{m} is the intercept parameter, A_{m,i} denotes the ith coefficient matrix of the mth regime, \Omega_{m} denotes the positive definite error term covariance matrix of the mth regime, and B_m is the invertible (d\times d) impact matrix of the mth regime. \nu_m is the degrees of freedom parameter of the mth regime. If parametrization=="mean", just replace each \phi_{m} with regimewise mean \mu_{m}. vec() is vectorization operator that stacks columns of a given matrix into a vector. vech() stacks columns of a given matrix from the principal diagonal downwards (including elements on the diagonal) into a vector. Bvec() is a vectorization operator that stacks the columns of a given impact matrix B_m into a vector so that the elements that are constrained to zero by the argument B_constraints are excluded.
weight_function	What type of transition weights \alpha_{m,t} should be used? "relative_dens": \alpha_{m,t}= \frac{\alpha_mf_{m,dp}(y_{t-1},...,y_{t-p+1})}{\sum_{n=1}^M\alpha_nf_{n,dp}(y_{t-1},...,y_{t-p+1})}, where \alpha_m\in (0,1) are weight parameters that satisfy \sum_{m=1}^M\alpha_m=1 and f_{m,dp}(\cdot) is the dp-dimensional stationary density of the mth regime corresponding to p consecutive observations. Available for Gaussian conditional distribution only. "logistic": M=2, \alpha_{1,t}=1-\alpha_{2,t}, and \alpha_{2,t}=[1+\exp\lbrace -\gamma(y_{it-j}-c) \rbrace]^{-1}, where y_{it-j} is the lag j observation of the ith variable, c is a location parameter, and \gamma > 0 is a scale parameter. "mlogit": \alpha_{m,t}=\frac{\exp\lbrace \gamma_m'z_{t-1} \rbrace} {\sum_{n=1}^M\exp\lbrace \gamma_n'z_{t-1} \rbrace}, where \gamma_m are coefficient vectors, \gamma_M=0, and z_{t-1} (k\times 1) is the vector containing a constant and the (lagged) switching variables. "exponential": M=2, \alpha_{1,t}=1-\alpha_{2,t}, and \alpha_{2,t}=1-\exp\lbrace -\gamma(y_{it-j}-c) \rbrace, where y_{it-j} is the lag j observation of the ith variable, c is a location parameter, and \gamma > 0 is a scale parameter. "threshold": \alpha_{m,t} = 1 if r_{m-1}<y_{it-j}\leq r_{m} and 0 otherwise, where -\infty\equiv r_0<r_1<\cdots <r_{M-1}<r_M\equiv\infty are thresholds y_{it-j} is the lag j observation of the ith variable. "exogenous": Exogenous nonrandom transition weights, specify the weight series in weightfun_pars. See the vignette for more details about the weight functions.
weightfun_pars	If weight_function == "relative_dens": Not used. If weight_function %in% c("logistic", "exponential", "threshold"): a numeric vector with the switching variable i\in\lbrace 1,...,d \rbrace in the first and the lag j\in\lbrace 1,...,p \rbrace in the second element. If weight_function == "mlogit": a list of two elements: The first element $vars: a numeric vector containing the variables that should used as switching variables in the weight function in an increasing order, i.e., a vector with unique elements in \lbrace 1,...,d \rbrace. The second element $lags: an integer in \lbrace 1,...,p \rbrace specifying the number of lags to be used in the weight function. If weight_function == "exogenous": a size (nrow(data) - p x M) matrix containing the exogenous transition weights as [t, m] for time t and regime m. Each row needs to sum to one and only weakly positive values are allowed.
cond_dist	specifies the conditional distribution of the model as "Gaussian", "Student", "ind_Student", or "ind_skewed_t", where "ind_Student" the Student's t distribution with independent components, and "ind_skewed_t" is the skewed t distribution with independent components (see Hansen, 1994).
AR_constraints	a size (Mpd^2 \times q) constraint matrix C specifying linear constraints to the autoregressive parameters. The constraints are of the form (\varphi_{1},...,\varphi_{M}) = C\psi, where \varphi_{m} = (vec(A_{m,1}),...,vec(A_{m,p})) \ (pd^2 \times 1),\ m=1,...,M, contains the coefficient matrices and \psi (q \times 1) contains the related parameters. For example, to restrict the AR-parameters to be the identical across the regimes, set C = [I:...:I]' (Mpd^2 \times pd^2) where I = diag(p*d^2).
mean_constraints	Restrict the mean parameters of some regimes to be identical? Provide a list of numeric vectors such that each numeric vector contains the regimes that should share the common mean parameters. For instance, if M=3, the argument list(1, 2:3) restricts the mean parameters of the second and third regime to be identical but the first regime has freely estimated (unconditional) mean. Ignore or set to NULL if mean parameters should not be restricted to be the same among any regimes. This constraint is available only for mean parametrized models; that is, when parametrization="mean".
weight_constraints	a list of two elements, R in the first element and r in the second element, specifying linear constraints on the transition weight parameters \alpha. The constraints are of the form \alpha = R\xi + r, where R is a known (a\times l) constraint matrix of full column rank (a is the dimension of \alpha), r is a known (a\times 1) constant, and \xi is an unknown (l\times 1) parameter. Alternatively, set R=0 to constrain the weight parameters to the constant r (in this case, \alpha is dropped from the constrained parameter vector).

Details

This function is internally used by GAfit and fitSTVAR, so structural models or B_constraints are not supported.

Value

Returns sorted parameter vector of the form described for the argument params, with the regimes sorted so that...

If cond_dist == "ind_Student":

The parameter vector with the columns of the impact matrices sorted and sign changed so that the first element in each column of B_1 is positive and in a decreasing order. Sorts also the degrees of freedom parameters accordingly.

If cond_dist == "ind_skewed_t":

The parameter vector with the columns of the impact matrices sorted so that the first element in each column of B_1 are in a decreasing order. Also sorts the degrees of freedom and skewness parameters accordingly. Moreover, if signs of any column are changed, the signs of the corresponding skewness parameter values are also changed accordingly.

Otherwise:

Nothing to sort, so returns the original parameter vector given in param.

sstvars documentation built on April 11, 2025, 5:47 p.m.