Mixed-Frequency Macro-Financial Spillovers

Abstract

We develop a new methodology to analyse spillovers between the real and financial sides of the economy that employs a mixed-frequency modelling approach. This enables high-frequency financial and low-frequency macroeconomic data series to be employed directly, avoiding the data aggregation and information loss incurred when using common-frequency methods. In a detailed analysis of macro-financial spillovers for the US economy, we find that the additional high-frequency information preserved by our mixed-frequency approach results in estimated spillovers that are typically substantially higher than those from an analogous common-frequency approach and are more consistent with known in-sample events. We also show that financial markets are typically net transmitters of shocks to the real side of the economy, particularly during turbulent market conditions, but that the bond and equity markets act heterogeneously in both transmitting and receiving shocks to the non-financial sector. We observe substantial short and medium-run variation in macro-financial spillovers that is statistically associated with key variables related to financial and macroeconomic fundamentals; the values of the term spread, VIX and unemployment rate in particular appear to be important determinants of macro- financial spillovers.