Forecasting macroeconomic variables using a structural state space model

Abstract

This paper has a twofold purpose; the first is to present a small macroeconomic model in state space form, the second is to demonstrate that it produces accurate forecasts. The first of these objectives is achieved by fitting two forms of a structural state space macroeconomic model to Australian data. Both forms model short and long run relationships. Forecasts from these models are subsequently compared to a structural vector autoregressive specification. This comparison fulfills the second objective demonstrating that the state space formulation produces more accurate forecasts for a selection of macroeconomic variables.State space, multivariate time series, macroeconomic model, forecast, SVAR