Estimation of Panel Vector Autoregression in Stata: a Package of Programs

Michael R.M. Abrigo and Inessa Love

(February 2015)

Abstract. Panel vector autoregression (VAR) models have been increasingly used in applied research.
While programs specifically designed to estimate time-series VAR models are often included as standard
features in most statistical packages, panel VAR model estimation and inference are often implemented
with general-use routines that require some programming dexterity. In this paper, we briefly discuss
model selection, estimation and inference of panel VAR models in a generalized method of moments
(GMM) framework, and present a set of Stata programs to conveniently execute them. We illustrate the
pvar package of programs by using standard Stata datasets.

Estimation of panel vector autoregression in Stata: A package of programs

Michael R.M. Abrigo*1 and Inessa Love2
(February 2015)

1. Introduction
Time-series vector autoregression (VAR) models originated in the macroeconometrics literature as an
alternative to multivariate simultaneous equation models (Sims, 1980). All variables in a VAR system are
typically treated as endogenous, although identifying restrictions based on theoretical models or on
statistical procedures may be imposed to disentangle the impact of exogenous shocks onto the system.
With the introduction of VAR in panel data settings (Holtz-Eakin, Newey and Rosen, 1988), panel VAR
models have been used in multiple applications across fields.
In this paper, we give a brief overview of panel VAR model selection, estimation and inference in a
generalized method of moments (GMM) framework, and provide a package of Stata programs, which
we illustrate using the US National Longitudinal Survey and Lutkepohls (1993) West Germany data. An
early paper that used panel VAR in Stata was Love and Zicchino (2006), who made the programs
available informally to other researchers.3 This paper introduces an updated package of programs with
additional functionality, including sub-routines to implement Granger (1969) causality tests, and optimal
moment and model selection following Andrews and Lu (2001).
*

Corresponding author: Michael R.M. Abrigo, email: [email protected].

Graduate student, Department of Economics, University of Hawai`i at Manoa (USA) and Research specialist,
Philippine Institute for Development Studies (Philippines).
2
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Hawai`i at Manoa (USA).
3
As of February 2015, Love and Zicchino (2006) has been cited in 445 research papers, most of which use the early
version of the package of programs to estimate panel VAR models. For example, these programs have been used in
studies recently published in The American Economic Review (Head, Lloyd-Ellis and Sun, 2014), Applied Economics
(Mora and Logan, 2012), Journal of Macroeconomics (Carpenter and Demiralp, 2012) and The Journal of Economic
History (Neumann, Fishback and Kantor, 2010), among others.
1

2. Panel vector autoregression

We consider a -variate panel VAR of order

with panel-specific fixed effects represented by the

following system of linear equations:

=

+ +

+
(1)

{1,2, , }, {1,2, , }
where
and

is a (1
are (1

) vector of dependent variables;

is a (1 ) vector of exogenous covariates;

) vectors of dependent variable-specific fixed-effects and idiosyncratic errors,

respectively. The (

) matrices

,,

and the (

) matrix

are parameters to be

estimated. We assume that the innovations have the following characteristics: [

and [

]=

]= , [

]=

for all > .

The parameters above may be estimated jointly with the fixed effects or, alternatively, independently of
the fixed effects after some transformation, using equation-by-equation ordinary least squares (OLS).
With the presence of lagged dependent variables in the right-hand side of the system of equations,
however, estimates would be biased even with large
zero as

(Nickell, 1981). Although the bias approaches

gets larger, simulations by Judson and Owen (1999) find significant bias even when

= 30.

2.1. GMM estimation

Various estimators based on GMM have been proposed to calculate consistent estimates of the above
equation, especially in fixed

and large

settings.4 With our assumption that errors are serially

uncorrelated, the first-difference transformation may be consistently estimated equation-by-equation

Other methods include analytical bias correction for the least squares dummy variable model, e.g. Kiviet (1995),
and Bun and Carree (2005), bias correction based on bootstrap methods, e.g. Everaert and Pozzi (2007), among
others. See Canova and Ciccarelli (2013) for a survey of panel VAR models.

by instrumenting lagged differences with differences and levels of

from earlier periods as proposed

by Anderson and Hsiao (1982). This estimator, however, poses some problems. The first-difference
transformation magnifies the gap in unbalanced panels. For instance, if some

are not available,

then the first-differences at time and 1 are likewise missing. Also, the necessary time periods each
panel is observed gets larger with the lag order of the panel VAR. As an example, for a second-order
panel VAR, instruments in levels require that

5 realizations are observed for each panel.

Arellano and Bover (1995) proposed forward orthogonal deviation as an alternative transformation,
which does not share the weaknesses of the first-difference transformation. Instead of using deviations
from past realizations, it subtracts the average of all available future observations, thereby minimizing
data loss. Potentially, only the most recent observation is not used in estimation. Since past realizations
are not included in this transformation, they remain as valid instruments. For instance, in a second-order
panel VAR only

4 realizations are necessary to have instruments in levels.

We can improve efficiency by including a longer set of lags as instruments. This, however, has the
unattractive property of reducing observations especially with unbalanced panels or with missing
observations, in general. As a remedy, Holtz-Eakin, Newey and Rosen (1988) proposed creating
instruments using observed realizations, with missing observations substituted with zero, based on the
standard assumption that the instrument list is uncorrelated with the errors.
While equation-by-equation GMM estimation yields consistent estimates of panel VAR, estimating the
model as a system of equations may result to efficiency gains (Holtz-Eakin, Newey and Rosen, 1988).
Suppose the common set of

+ instruments is given by the row vector

, where

, and

equations are indexed by a number in superscript. Consider the following transformed panel VAR model
based on equation (1) but represented in a more compact form:

(2)

=[

where the asterisk denotes some transformation of the original variable. If we denote the original
variable as

, then the first difference transformation imply that

=(

forward orthogonal deviation

future observations for panel at time , and

/(

+ 1) , where

, while for the

is the number of available

is its average.

Suppose we stack observations over panels then over time. The GMM estimator is given by
=
where

is a (

(3)

) weighting matrix assumed to be non-singular, symmetric and positive semi-

definite. Assuming that [

weighting matrix

]=

and rank

+ , the GMM estimator is consistent. The

may be selected to maximize efficiency (Hansen, 1982).5

Joint estimation of the system of equations makes cross-equation hypothesis testing straightforward.
Wald tests about the parameters may be implemented based on the GMM estimate of

and its

covariance matrix. Granger causality tests, with the hypothesis that all coefficients on the lag of variable
are jointly zero in the equation for variable , may likewise be carried out using this test.

Roodman (2009) provides an excellent discussion of GMM estimation in a dynamic panel setting and its
applications using Stata. Readers are encouraged to read his paper for a more detailed discussion of this topic.

2.2. Model Selection

Panel VAR analysis is predicated upon choosing the optimal lag order in both panel VAR specification
and moment condition. Andrews and Lu (2001) proposed consistent moment and model selection
criteria (MMSC) for GMM models based on Hansens (1982) statistic of over-identifying restrictions.
Their proposed MMSC are analogous to various commonly used maximum likelihood-based model
selection criteria, namely the Akaike information criteria (AIC) (Akaike, 1969), the Bayesian information
criteria (BIC) (Schwarz, 1978; Rissanen, 1978; Akaike, 1977), and the Hannan-Quinn information criteria
(HQIC) (Hannan and Quinn, 1979).
Applying Andrews and Lus MMSC to the GMM estimator in (3), their proposed criteria select the pair of
vectors ( , ) that minimizes
,

( , , )=
,

where

( , , )=

( , )=

) (| | | |)

,
(

)2

ln

(4)

(| | | |)

(5)

(| | | |) ln ln ,

>2

(6)

( , , ) is the statistic of over-identifying restriction for a -variate panel VAR of order

moment conditions based on

and

lags of the dependent variables with sample size .

By construction, the above MMSC are available only when

> . As an alternative criterion, the overall

coefficient of determination (CD) may be calculated even with just-identified GMM models. Suppose we
denote the (

) unconstrained covariance matrix of the dependent variables by

. CD captures the

proportion of variation explained by the panel VAR model, and may be calculated as

=1

det( )
det( )

(7)

2.3. Impulse Response

Without loss of generality, we drop the exogenous variables in our notation and focus on the
autoregressive structure of the panel VAR in equation (1). Lutkepohl (2005) and Hamilton (1994) both
show that a VAR model is stable if all moduli of the companion matrix

are strictly less than one, where

the companion matrix is formed by

(8)

Stability implies that the panel VAR is invertible and has an infinite-order vector moving-average (VMA)
representation, providing known interpretation to estimated impulse-response functions and forecasterror variance decompositions. The simple impulse-response function
the model as an infinite vector moving-average, where

may be computed by rewriting

are the VMA parameters.

= , ,..

The simple IRFs have no causal interpretation, however. Since the innovations

(9)

are correlated

contemporaneously, a shock on one variable is likely to be accompanied by shocks in other variables, as

well. Suppose we have a matrix , such that =
innovations as
. The matrix

. Then

may be used to orthogonalize the

and to transform the VMA parameters into the orthogonalized impulse-responses

effectively imposes identification restrictions on the system of dynamic equations.

Sims (1980) proposed the Cholesky decomposition of

to impose a recursive structure on a VAR. The

decomposition however is not unique, but depends on the ordering of variables in .

Impulse-response function confidence intervals may be derived analytically based on the asymptotic
distribution of the panel VAR parameters and the cross-equation error variance-covariance matrix.
Alternatively, the confidence interval may likewise be estimated using Monte Carlo simulation, and
bootstrap resampling methods.6

2.4. Forecast-error variance decomposition

The -step ahead forecast-error can be expressed as

where

]=

is the observed vector at time + and [

(10)

] is the -step ahead predicted vector

made at time . Similar to impulse-response functions, we orthogonalize the shocks using the matrix
to isolate each variables contribution to the forecast-error variance. The orthogonalized shocks
have a covariance matrix

, which allows straightforward decomposition of the forecast-error variance.

More specifically, the contribution of a variable

variable

may be calculated as

where

to the -step ahead forecast-error variance of

is the -th column of

(11)

. In application, the contributions are often normalized relative to the

-step ahead forecast-error variance of variable

See for instance Lutkepohl (2005) for details applied in time-series VAR.

(12)

Similar to impulse-response functions, confidence intervals may be derived analytically or estimated

using various resampling techniques.

3. Stata syntax
Model selection, estimation and inference about the panel vector autoregression model above can be
implemented with the new Stata commands pvar, pvarsoc, pvargranger, pvarstable, pvarirf
and pvarfevd. The syntax and outputs are closely patterned after Statas built-in var commands for
ease of use in switching between panel and time series VAR. We describe the commands syntax in this
section and provide examples in section 4.

3.1. pvar
pvar estimates panel vector autoregression models by fitting a multivariate panel regression of each

dependent variable on lags of itself, lags of all other dependent variables and exogenous variables, if
any. The estimation is by generalized method of moments (GMM). The command is implemented using
the interactive version of Statas gmm with analytic derivatives.
Syntax
pvar depvarlist [if] [in] [, options]

Options
lags(#) specifies the maximum lag order # to be included in the model. The default is to use the first

lag of each variable in depvarlist.

exog(varlist) specifies a list of exogenous variables to be included in the panel VAR.

fod and fd specifies how the panel-specific fixed effects will be removed. fod specifies that the panel

fixed-effects be removed using forward orthogonal deviation or Helmert transformation. By

default, the first # lags of transformed depvarlist in the model are instrumented by the same
lags in level (i.e. untranformed). fod is the default option. fd specifies that the panel-specific
fixed effects be removed using first difference instead of forward orthogonal deviations. By
default, the first # lags of transformed (i.e. differenced) depvarlist in the model are
instrumented by the #+1 to 2#+1 lags of depvarlist in levels (i.e. untransformed).
td subtracts from each variable in the model its cross-sectional mean before estimation. This could be

used to removed time fixed effects from all the variables prior to any other transformation.
instlags(numlist) overrides the default lag orders of depvarlist used as instruments in the

model (see fod and fd options above which describe which lags are used as default). Instead the
numlist-th lags are used as instruments.
gmmstyle specifies that "GMM-style" instruments as proposed by Holtz-Eakin, Newey and Rosen

(1988) be used. For each instrument based on lags of depvarlist, missing values are substituted
with zero. Observations with no valid instruments are excluded. This option is available only with
instlags().
gmmopts(options) overrides the default gmm options run by pvar. Each equation in the model may

be accessed individually using the variable names in depvarlist as equation names.

vce(vcetype[, independent]) specifies the type of standard error reported, which includes types

that are robust to some types of misspecification, that allow for intragroup correlation, and that
use bootstrap or jackknife methods.
overid specifies that Hansen's J statistic of over-identifying restriction be reported. This option is

available only for over-identified systems.

9

level(#) specifies the confidence level, as a percentage, to be used for reporting confidence intervals.

The default is level(95) or as set by set level.

noprint suppresses printing of the coefficient table.

Saved Results
pvar saves the following in e():

Scalars
e(N)

number of observations

e(n)

number of panels

e(tmin)

first time period in sample

e(tmax)

last time period in sample

e(tbar)

average time periods among panels

e(mlag)

maximum lag order in panel VAR

e(N_clust)

number of clusters

e(Q)

criterion function

e(J)

Hansen's J chi-squared statistic

e(J_df)

J statistic degrees of freedom

e(rank)

rank of e(V)

e(ic)

number of iterations used by iterative GMM estimator

e(converged)1 if converged, 0 otherwise

Macros
e(cmd)

pvar

e(cmdline)

command as typed
10

e(depvar)

names of dependent variables

e(exog)

names of exogenous variables, if specified

e(clustvar) name of cluster variable

e(instr)

instruments

e(eqnames)

equation names

e(timevar)

name of time variable

e(panelvar) name of panel VAR iable

e(properties) b V

Matrices
e(b)

coefficient vector

e(V)

Variance-covariance matrix of the estimator

e(Sigma)

Variance-covariance matrix of the model residuals

e(W)

weight matrix used for final round of estimation

e(init)

initial values of the estimators

Functions
e(sample)

mark estimation sample

3.2. pvarsoc
pvarsoc provides various summary measures to aid in panel VAR model selection. It reports the model

overall coefficient of determination, Hansens (1982) J statistic and corresponding p-value, and moment
model selection criteria developed by Andrews and Lu (2001) based on the J statistic. Andrew and Lus
criteria are all based on Hansens J statistic, which requires the number of moment conditions to be
greater than the number of endogenous variables in the model. pvarsoc uses the estimation sample

11

of the least restrictive panel VAR model, i.e. with the highest lag order used, for all models that would
be estimated by the program.
Syntax
pvarsoc depvarlist [if] [in] [, options]

Options
maxlag(#) specifies the maximum lag order for which the statistics are obtained.
pinstlag(numlist) specifies that the numlist-th lag from the highest lag order of depvarlist

specified in the panel VAR model implemented using pvar be used. This option cannot be
specified with the option pvaropts(instlag(numlist)).
pvaropts(options) passes arguments to pvar. All arguments specified in options are passed to

and used by pvar in estimation.

Saved Results
pvarsoc saves the following in r():

Scalars
r(N)

number of observations

r(n)

number of panels

r(tmin)

first time period in sample

r(tmax)

last time period in sample

r(tbar)

average time periods among panels

r(maxlag)

maximum lag order in panel VAR

r(endog)

names of endogenous variables

Macros

12

r(exog)

names of exogenous variables, if specified

Matrices
r(stats)

CD, J and p-value, MBIC, MAIC, and MQIC

3.3. pvargranger
The post-estimation command pvargranger performs Granger causality Wald tests for each equation
of the underlying panel VAR model. It provides a convenient alternative to Statas built-in test
command.
Syntax
pvargranger [, estimates(estname)]

Options
estimates(estname) requests that pvargranger use the previously obtained set of panel VAR

estimates saved as estname. By default, pvargranger uses the active (i.e. the latest) results.
Saved Results
pvargranger saves the following in r():

Matrix
r(pgstats)

chi-squared, degrees of freedom, and p-values

3.4. pvarstable
The post-estimation command pvarstable checks the stability condition of panel VAR estimates by
calculating the modulus of each eigenvalue of the estimated model. Lutkepohl (2005) and Hamilton
(1994) both show that a VAR model is stable if all moduli of the companion matrix are strictly less than
one. Stability implies that the panel VAR is invertible and has an infinite-order vector moving-average
13

representation, providing known interpretation to estimated impulse-response functions and forecasterror variance decompositions.
Syntax
pvarstable [, options]

Options
estimates(estname) requests that pvarstable use the previously obtained set of pvar estimates

saved in estname. By default, pvarstable uses the active estimation results.

graph requests pvarstable to draw a graph of the eigenvalue of the companion matrix.
nogrid suppresses the polar grid circles on the plotted eigenvalues.

Saved Results
pvarstable saves the following in r():

Matrices
r(Re)

real part of the eigenvalues of the companion matrix

r(Im)

imaginary part of the eigenvalues of the companion matrix

r(Modulus)

modulus of the eigenvalues of the companion matrix

3.5. pvarirf
The post-estimation command pvarirf calculates and plots impulse-response functions (IRF).
Confidence bands are estimated using Gaussian approximation based on Monte Carlo draws from the
estimated panel VAR model. Orthogonalized IRF are based on Cholesky decomposition, and cumulative
IRF may be also computed using pvarirf.

14

Syntax
pvarirf [, options]

Options
step(#) specifies the step (forecast) horizon; the default is ten periods.
impulse(impulsevars) and response(endogvars) specify the impulse and response variables.

Usually one of each is specified, and one graph is drawn. If multiple variables are specified, a
separate subgraph is drawn for each impulse-response combination. If impulse() and
response() are not specified, subgraphs are drawn for all combinations of impulse and

response variables.
porder(varlist) specifies the Cholesky ordering of the endogenous variables to be used when

estimating orthogonalized IRFs, as well as the order of the IRF plots. By default, the order in
which the variables were originally specified on the pvar command is used. This allows a new
set of IRFs with a different order to be produced without re-estimating the system.
oirf requests that orthogonalized IRFs be estimated. The default is simple IRFs.
cumulative computes cumulative impulse response functions. This option may be combined with
oirf.
mc(#) requests that # Monte Carlo draws be used to estimate the confidence intervals of the IRFs using

Gaussian approximation. The default is not to plot confidence intervals, i.e. # = 0.

table displays the calculated impulse-response functions as a table. The default is not to tabulate IRFs.
level(#)specifies the confidence level, as a percentage, to be used for computing confidence bands.

The default is level(95) or as set by set level. level is available only when mc(#)> 1 is
specified.
15

dots requests the display of iteration dots. By default, one dot character is displayed for each iteration.

A red 'x' is displayed if the iteration returns an error.

save(filename) specifies that the calculated IRFs be saved under the name filename.
byoption(by_option) affects how the subgraphs are combined, labeled, etc. This option is

documented in [G] by_option.

nodraw suppresses the display of the estimated IRFs.

Saved Results
pvarirf saves the following in r():

Scalars
r(iter)

Monte Carlo iterations

r(step)

forecast horizon

r(porder)

Cholesky order of orthogonalized IRF

Macros

3.6. pvarfevd
The post-estimation command pvarfevd computes forecast-error variance decomposition (FEVD)
based on a Cholesky decomposition of the residual covariance matrix of the underlying panel VAR
model. Standard errors and confidence intervals based on Monte Carlo simulation may be optionally
computed.
Caution in interpreting computed FEVD should be exercised when exogenous variables are included in
the underlying panel VAR model. Contributions of exogenous variables, when included in the panel VAR
model, to forecast-error variance are disregarded in calculating FEVD.
16

Syntax
pvarfevd [, options]

Options
step(#) specifies the step (forecast) horizon; the default is ten periods.
impulse(impulsevars) and response(responsevars) specify the impulse and response

variables for which forecast-error variance decomposition are to be reported. If impulse() or

response() is not specified, each endogenous variable, in turn, is used.
porder(varlist) specifies the Cholesky ordering of the endogenous variables to be used when

estimating FEVDs. By default, the order in which the variables were originally specified on the
underlying pvar command is used.
mc(#) requests that # Monte Carlo draws be used to estimate the standard errors and the percentile-

based 90% confidence intervals of the FEVDs. Computed standard errors and confidence
intervals are not displayed, but may be saved as a separate file.
dots requests the display of iteration dots. By default, one dot character is displayed for each iteration.

A red 'x' is displayed if the iteration returns an error.

save(filename) specifies that the FEVDs be saved under the name filename. In addition, standard

errors and percentile-based 90% confidence intervals are saved when #>1 in option mc(#) is
specified.
notable requests the table to be constructed but not displayed.

Saved Results
pvarfevd saves the following in r():

17

Scalars
r(iter)

Monte Carlo iterations

r(step)

forecast horizon

r(porder)

Cholesky order

Macros

4. Examples
We illustrate the use of the pvar suite of commands by analyzing the relationship between annual
hours worked and hourly earnings, which has been previously analyzed by Holtz-Eakin, Newey and
Rosen (1988) on their seminal paper on panel vector autoregression. To compare our new programs
with Statas built-in var suite of commands, we also applied the new pvar suite of commands to
Lutkephols (1993) West Germany time series data.

4.1. National Longitudinal Survey data

We use the subsample of women aged 14-26 years in 1968 from the National Longitudinal Surveys of
1968 to 1978 available from Stata. Our subsample consists of 2,039 women who had reported wages
(wage) and annual hours worked (hours) in at least three rounds of the survey, of which two are in
consecutive years. Holtz-Eakin, et. al. used the same survey but with a different time period and
different subsample of workers, thus results may not be directly comparable.
Model selection measures calculated using pvarsoc for first- to third-order panel VAR s using the first
four lags of hours and wage as instruments is shown below.

18

. webuse nlswork2
(National Longitudinal Survey.

Young Women 14-26 years of age in 1968)

. gen wage = exp(ln_wage)

. pvarsoc wage hours, maxlag(3) pvaropts(instl(1/4))
Running panel VAR lag order selection on estimation sample
...

Selection order criteria

Sample: 72 - 73

lag
1
2
3

CD

No. of obs
No. of panels
Ave. no. of T
J

.9906918
.988392
.9862297

J pvalue

11.74496
5.395145
3.624628

MBIC

.4663737
.7146273
.4591831

=
=
=

MAIC

-69.02726
-48.453
-23.29944

-12.25504
-10.60486
-4.375372

838
506
1.656
MQIC

-34.01648
-25.11248
-11.62918

Based on the three model selection criteria by Andrews and Lu (2001) and the over-all coefficient of
determination, first-order panel VAR is the preferred model, since this has the smallest MBIC, MAIC and
MQIC. While we also want to minimize Hansens J statistic, it does not correct for the degrees of
freedom in the model like the model and moment selection criteria by Andrews and Lu. Based on the
selection criteria, we fit a first-order panel VAR model with the same specification of instruments as
above using GMM estimation implemented by pvar.
. pvar wage hours, instl(1/4)
Panel vector autoregresssion

GMM Estimation
Final GMM Criterion Q(b) =
.014
Initial weight matrix: Identity
GMM weight matrix:
Robust
No. of obs
No. of panels
Ave. no. of T

Coef.

Std. Err.

=
=
=

838
506
1.656

P>|z|

[95% Conf. Interval]

wage
wage
L1.

.6428702

.0978213

6.57

0.000

.4511439

.8345965

hours
L1.

.0170489

.0176144

0.97

0.333

-.0174747

.0515725

wage
L1.

-.0575627

.5706831

-0.10

0.920

-1.176081

1.060956

hours
L1.

.5834965

.1436703

4.06

0.000

.3019079

.865085

hours

Instruments : l(1/4).(wage hours)

19

Note that the 506 women included in the estimation is significantly less than the full subsample of
women available in the data. By default, pvar drops from estimation any observation with missing data.
Since hours worked and wages are not observed in all years for all women in the subsample the number
of observations dropped grows with the lag order of variables included as instruments. We can improve
estimation by using GMM-style instruments as proposed by Holtz-Eakin, et. al. Instrument lags with
missing values are replaced with zeroes. This increases the estimation sample, which results to more
efficient estimates.
. pvar wage hours, instl(1/4) gmmstyle
Panel vector autoregresssion

GMM Estimation
Final GMM Criterion Q(b) =
.00792
Initial weight matrix: Identity
GMM weight matrix:
Robust
No. of obs
No. of panels
Ave. no. of T

Coef.

Std. Err.

=
=
=

5257
2039
2.578

P>|z|

[95% Conf. Interval]

wage
wage
L1.

.8062972

.079843

10.10

0.000

.6498078

.9627867

hours
L1.

.0721378

.0248413

2.90

0.004

.0234498

.1208257

wage
L1.

-2.280437

.3250711

-7.02

0.000

-2.917565

-1.643309

hours
L1.

-.1068443

.0947648

-1.13

0.260

-.2925799

.0788912

hours

Instruments : l(1/4).(wage hours)

Although Granger causality for a first-order panel VAR may be inferred from the pvar output above, we
still perform the test using pvargranger as an illustration. Results of the Granger causality tests below
show that wage Granger-causes hours, and hours Granger-causes wage at the usual confidence levels,
similar to the findings by Holtz-Eakin, et.al.

20

. pvargranger
panel VAR-Granger causality Wald test
Ho: Excluded variable does not Granger-cause Equation variable
Ha: Excluded variable Granger-causes Equation variable
Equation \ Excluded

chi2

df

Prob > chi2

wage
hours
ALL

8.433
8.433

1
1

0.004
0.004

wage
ALL

49.213
49.213

1
1

0.000
0.000

hours

Panel vector autoregression model estimates are seldom interpreted by its self. In practice, researchers
are often interested in the impact of exogenous changes in each endogenous variable to other variables
in the panel VAR system. Prior to estimating impulse-response functions (IRF) and forecast-error
variance decompositions (FEVD), however, we first check the stability condition of the estimated panel
VAR. The resulting table and graph of eigenvalues confirms that the estimate is stable.
. pvarstable, graph
Eigenvalue stability condition
Eigenvalue
Real
Imaginary
.559372
.1400809

Modulus

0
0

.559372
.1400809

All the eigenvalues lie inside the unit circle.

pVAR satisfies stability condition.

-1

-.5

Imaginary
0

.5

Roots of the companion matrix

-1

-.5

0
Real

21

.5

Following the theoretical exposition by Holtz-Eakin, et. al., we argue that shocks in wage levels have
direct impact on contemporaneous hours worked, while current work effort affects wages only in the
future. Using this causal ordering, we calculated the implied IRF using pvarirf and the implied FEVD
using pvarfevd. The IRF confidence intervals are computed using 200 Monte Carlo draws based on the
estimated model. Standard errors and confidence intervals for the FEVD estimates are likewise available
but not shown here to save on space.
. pvarfevd, mc(200) save("fevd.dta")
note: label truncated to 80 characters

Forecast-error variance decomposition

Response
variable
and
Forecast
horizon

Impulse variable
wage
hours

wage
0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

0
1
.9587072
.945842
.9419529
.9407574
.9403861
.9402702
.9402341
.9402227
.9402192

0
0
.0412928
.054158
.0580471
.0592426
.0596139
.0597298
.059766
.0597773
.0597809

0
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10

0
.0933682
.3183373
.3792638
.3964525
.4016319
.4032323
.403731
.4038868
.4039355
.4039508

0
.9066318
.6816627
.6207362
.6035476
.598368
.5967677
.596269
.5961132
.5960644
.5960492

hours

FEVD standard errors and confidence intervals based

on 200 Monte Carlo simulations are saved in file
fevd.dta
. pvarirf, mc(200) oirf byopt(yrescale)

22

hours : hours

hours : wage
.6

4
.4
2
.2

-2

wage : hours

wage : wage
1.5

0
-1

-2
.5
-3
0

-4
0

10

10

step
95% CI

Orthogonalized IRF

impulse : response

Based on the FEVD estimates, we see that as much as 40 percent of variation in hours worked by
women in our example can be explained by their wages. On the other hand, hours workedexplain only
five percent of variation in future wages of women. In terms of levels, the IRF plot shows that a positive
shock on real wages leads to a decreased work effort, which implies a backward bending labor supply
among women in the sample. It is also noteworthy that current shock in work effort have positive yet
short-lived impacts on both hours worked and wages. The effect of current shock on wages, on the
other hand, has a persistent positive impact on future wages.

4.2. Lutkepohl (1993) West Germany data

We compare our pvar command with the built-in Stata var command using Lutkepohls West Germany
time series data available from Stata. The data contains first difference of the natural log of investment
(dln_inv), of income (dln_inc), and of consumption (dln_consump) from the second quarter of 1962 up
to the fourth quarter of 1982. Lutkepohl uses only observations up to the fourth quarter of 1978 in his
23

examples, but we use the full sample in our exposition here. We set the time-series data as a one-panel
data for pvar to function.
. webuse lutkepohl2
(Quarterly SA West German macro data, Bil DM, from Lutkepohl 1993 Table E.1)
. gen id = 1
. xtset id qtr
panel variable:
time variable:
delta:

id (strongly balanced)
qtr, 1960q1 to 1982q4
1 quarter

For simplicity, we compare VAR(1) estimates using the built-in Stata var (denoted var1 in the output
below), and two specifications of the new Stata command pvar: 1) using the default options with a onelag instruments (pvar1_1) and 2) using a five-lags GMM style instrument set (pvar1_5). The
VAR/panel VAR point estimates are summarized as a table below. Based on the point estimates and
standard errors calculated, notice that each coefficients 95 percent confidence interval, i.e. roughly two
standard errors on either side of the point estimate, overlap across estimators. Also, pvar uses one less
observation than var because of the forward orthogonal transformation.

24

. qui var dln_inv dln_inc dln_consump, lags(1)

.

est store var1

. qui pvar dln_inv dln_inc dln_consump, lags(1)

.

est store pvar1_1

. qui pvar dln_inv dln_inc dln_consump, lags(1) instl(1/5) gmms

.

est store pvar1_5

. est table var1 pvar1_1 pvar1_5, se stat(N tmin tmax) drop(_cons)

Variable
dln_inv
dln_inv
L1.
dln_inc
L1.
dln_consump
L1.
dln_inc
dln_inv
L1.
dln_inc
L1.
dln_consump
L1.
dln_consump
dln_inv
L1.
dln_inc
L1.
dln_consump
L1.

var1

pvar1_1

pvar1_5

-.22185123
.10653512

-.21273369
.17654561

-.26849009
.11342286

.41510931
.44122824

.56587455
.45532768

.08242313
.24411809

.57644709
.5011716

.72224157
.52570264

1.6836959
.36813698

.0340018
.02821766

.02621551
.02586756

.0209324
.01613904

-.00827691
.11686691

.12441837
.16229116

.47762624
.12738437

.23605129
.13274394

.41862255
.14565136

.15905599
.12359724

-.00139181
.02590542

-.00633585
.02349897

-.00875257
.01656548

.30784668
.10729047

.41644295
.14926382

.7993262
.13852001

-.20676573
.12186649

-.03995971
.1430883

-.21808259
.13304683

90
2
91

89
2
90

89
2
90

Statistics
N
tmin
tmax

legend: b/se

Cholesky impulse-response functions and forecast-error variance decompositions can likewise be

estimated using the new Stata commands pvarirf and pvarfevd, but are not shown in the interest of
space.7 Similar to the VAR/panel VAR point estimates, the 95 percent confidence intervals of the

This paper is accompanied with a *.do file which details all commands used in this paper.

25

Cholesky IRFs and FEVDs overlap for the three estimators. Below, we show the response of dln_inv to
a one standard deviation shock on dln_inv using the three models.

VAR1

PVAR1_1

varirf, dln_inv, dln_inv

dln_inv : dln_inv

.06

.06

.04

.04

.02

.02

-.02

-.02
0

10

step
95% CI

10

step
orthogonalized irf

Graphs by irfname, impulse variable, and response variable

95% CI

Orthogonalized IRF

impulse : response

PVAR1_5
dln_inv : dln_inv
.06
.04
.02
0
-.02
0

10

step
95% CI

Orthogonalized IRF

impulse : response

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