Sharpening Economic Interpretation with HARS

Read full text
Authors: Dawis Kim, Tao Zha
Cited by: 1

Abstract

We develop a unified framework that combines shock volatility with sign and narrative restrictions and provides the theoretical foundation for the computationally efficient sampler HARS.HARS preserves the heteroskedastic likelihood and can be combined with any posterior simulator for the heteroskedastic model.In monetary policy, oil market, and fiscal policy models, the same restrictions deliver substantively different economics once shock heteroskedasticity is accounted for.Homoskedastic SVARs put uncertainty in the wrong place, pushing shock-scale variation into impulse-response uncertainty.Heteroskedasticity sharpens dynamic responses, alters economic conclusions, and restores 90% credible intervals as a practical standard for economic inference.

Publication details

Journal / source
National Bureau of Economic Research
Publication date
1 July 2026