Large mixed-frequency VARs with a parsimonious time-varying parameter structure

To simultaneously consider mixed-frequency time series, their joint dynamics, and possible structural changes, we introduce a time-varying parameter mixed-frequency VAR. To keep our approach from becoming too complex, we implement time variation parsimoniously: only the intercepts and a common factor in the error variances vary over time. We can therefore estimate moderately large systems in a reasonable amount of time, which makes our modifications appealing for practical use. For eleven U. S. variables, we examine the performance of our model and compare the results to the time-constant MF-VAR of Schorfheide and Song (2015). Our results demonstrate the feasibility and usefulness of our method.