Chapter 3: Vector Autoregressive Methods

Previously, we have introduced the classical approaches in forecasting single/univariate time series like the Autoregressive-Moving-Average (ARIMA) model and the simple linear regression model. We learned that stationarity is a condition that is necessary when using ARIMA while this need not be imposed when using the linear regression model. In this notebook, we extend the forecasting problem to a more generalized framework where we deal with multivariate time series–time series which has more than one time-dependent variable. More specifically, we introduce vector autoregressive (VAR) models and show how they can be used in forecasting mutivariate time series.

The notebook is outlined as follows:

  • Multivariate Time Series model

    • Motivation

    • Univariate VS Multivariate Time Series

    • Examples

    • Foundations

  • Vector Autoregressive (VAR) Models

    • VAR(1) model

    • VAR(p) model

    • Choosing the order p

  • Building a VAR model

  • Structural Analysis

    • Impulse Response Function

    • Forecast Error Variance Decomposition

  • Takeaways

  • References