2010 3rd International Conference on Information Management, Innovation Management and Industrial Engineering
The Relative Performance of VAR and VECM Model
Jianfeng Zhang, Wenxiu Hu
Department of Finance
Xi’an University of Technology
Xi`an, China
zjf191@sina.com, hwxsxj@sina.com
Abstract—Two models are examined in this study:
Vector Autoregressive Model (VAR) and Vector Error
Correction Model (VECM). Based on three indices:
S&P 500, Nikkei 225 (NIKKEI), and Morgan Stanley
EAFE (MSCIEAFE or MSCI EAFE) Index, we
implement VAR and VECM models, including the pre-
estimation diagnostics, model estimation and
interpretation and post-estimation tests, etc. By testing,
we find that while the VECM model consistently
outperforms the VAR model within sample, it is hard to
tell which works better out-of-sample. Our examination
suggests four conclusions: First, both models do the
best job with MSCI EAFE. Second, VECM model
does a better job within sample. Third, both models
create less error out-of-sample than within sample.
Fourth, VECM model does a better job than VAR
in S&P 500 and NIKKEI.
Keywords-Forecasting Performance; VAR Model;
VECM Model; Cointegration Estimation
I. INTRODUCTION
Various studies have been documented in the literature
seeking to forecast accuracy the model effect, individually
(LITTERMAN, 1979,1986; BERNARDUS, 2005; YAN-
LEUNG, 2008; INOUE, 2004; JOHANSEN, 1991;
GRANGER, POON, 2003, 2005). However, there are few
models, besides VAR and VECM that have satisfied
forecasting result. Vector Autoregressive model is a
natural generalization of univariate autoregressive (AR)
model. VAR methodology was proposed as an alternative
to simultaneous equation models and made significant
advances in the 1980s (ENGLE; GRANGER 1987;
CAMPBELL; SHILLER, 1987). At the beginning of its
development, Sims (1980) and Litterman (1979, 1986)
approached this methodology as being more appropriate
for forecasting than simultaneous equation models. One of
the model advantages resides in the fact that in general, its
forecasts are considered superior to simultaneous equation
models (SIMS, 1980; MCNEES, 1986).
The VECM models as developed by Engle and
Granger (1987) have as their aim the insertion of short-
term adjustments due to the presence of cointegration. As
VECM takes into account the cointegrating relationships
among the endogenous variables, In fact, Vector Error
Correction Model (VECM) is equivalent to a vector
978-0-7695-4279-9/10 $26.00 © 2010 IEEE
DOI 10.1109/ICIII.2010.195
Xin Zhang
School of Business
Queen’s University
Kingston, Canada
xzhang@business.queensu.ca
autoregressive model with unit roots (PENM, 1997).
However more recently, VECM model has given an
opportunity to develop more complex analyses in forex
markets, because they can accommodate both long-term
and dynamic processes. Although the two models have
some individual advantages, there is not a conclusion about
which works better between VAR and VECM model. For
parsimonious reasons, we will try to report only different
results in the two models.
The paper is structured in the following manner:
Section 2 describes the data; In section 3, we study the
return series and VAR; In section 4, we study the
cointegration and VECM; Section 5 discusses the horse
racing of models; and Section 6 presents the conclusions.
II. DATA
The data used in this paper are for three indices, i.e.,
S&P 500, Nikkei 225 (NIKKEI), and Morgan Stanley
EAFE (MSCIEAFE or MSCI EAFE) Index. All these
data are collected from Data Stream, a commercial
database provided by Thomson Financial.
To be able to work on both VAR and VECM models,
we need both stationary and non-stationary time series. I
use (natural) logged Price Index series of the three indices
as non-stationary series and the corresponding return series
as stationary series (Stationary here is ex ante expectation,
the exact stationarity will be tested in the paper). Return
series are defined as the log differences of the Price Index
series.
We use logged Price Indexes for two reasons. First, as
all the Price Indexes are non-negative and highly skewed,
using logged Price Indexes can at least partially remove the
skewness. More importantly, VECM models use first order
difference of the series as the dependent variable. The first
order difference of logged Price Index is exactly the logged
return of these series. Thus, by using logged Price Index,
we essentially make the dependent variable in the VAR
and VECM models to be exactly the same, allowing direct
comparison of the forecasting errors of these two models.
A notable difference of the data in the current paper is
that we will limit the sample period to calendar year 2007
to 2008, with the first year data to estimate model and next
year data to carry out (some of) post-estimation tests.
There are two reasons for shortening the sample period.
First, using too long a sample period may lead to the issue
of structural change. We expect the relationship among
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these series to change over time due to market integration Table 1: Time Trend Test
of the three capital markets, policy changes and so on. Coefficient P-Value
Second, using too large a sample is too demanding in S&P 500 Return 0.0000 0.561
computing power. NIKKEI Return 0.0000 0.606
III. RETURN SERIES AND VAR MSCIEAFE Return 0.0000 0.353
We then test the stationary of individual time series.
A. Pre-estimation Diagnostics All three tests significantly reject the null hypothesis of unit
Table 1 presents results from simple time trend root and we conclude that these series are stationary.
regressions. Coefficient reported in the table is the We also carry out a multivariate white noise test and
coefficient on the time trend variable and P-Value is the the p-value of 0.0000 strongly rejects the null hypothesis
corresponding p-value. Table 1 suggests that none of the of white noise.
return series shows significant time trend. We then run stata command varsoc to select the lag
for fitting VAR model. Table 2 reports the output from
By seasonality test, the null hypothesis is that the
varsoc. It seems that all information criterions and LR
series do not contain any seasonality. None of the three
test suggest VAR (1) to be the best choice.
series seems to show any seasonality.
Table 2: Lag selection for VAR
lag LL LR df p FPE AIC HQIC SBIC
0 2443.88 1.1e-12 -18.9952 -18.9785 -18.9538
1 2496.27 104.77* 9 8.1e-13*
0.000 -19.3328* -19.2662* -19.1671*
2 2504.47 16.406 9 0.0598.1e-13 -19.3266 -19.21 -19.0366
3 2508.21 7.4885 9 0.5868.5e-13 -19.2857 -19.1191 -18.8714
4 2513.72 11.01 9 0.2758.7e-13 -19.2585 -19.0419 -18.7199
out the IRF and forecast practices in the next subsection.
B. Model Estimation
It is natural to reason from this evidence that the
We fit a VAR (1) model and the estimations are U.S. equity market is still the most influential market
reported in the following equation, where*** means among the three. However, one should be cautious in
significant at 0.01, ** at 0.05 and * at 0.10, respectively. generalizing these results. For one thing, S&P 500 may
only represent the top and most successful firms in the
⎡S & P t ⎤ ⎡ 0.1023 ⎤ ⎡ S & P t -1 ⎤ U.S..The number of firms financial economists work with
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥
⎢ NIKKEI t ⎥ = ⎢ 0.0371 ⎥ + ⎢ NIKKEI t -1 ⎥ ⋅ for research in a given year is generally over 8,000. Thus,
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ how representative S&P 500 is questionable. Nevertheless,
⎢⎣ EAFE t ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ 0.0322 ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ EAFE t -1 ⎥⎦ given current results, we are quite confident the S&P
index is more influential than the other two, at least
⎡ - 0.1874 ∗ ∗ ∗ 0.0100 0.0592 ⎤ ⎡ eS & P, t ⎤ statistically. We will provide further discussion in the
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ next subsection too.
⎢ 0.4741 ∗ ∗ ∗ - 0.0442 0.1365 ⎥+ ⎢ eNIKKEI, t ⎥
⎢ ⎥ ⎢ ⎥ C. Post-Estimation
⎢⎣ 0.3843 ∗ ∗ ∗ 0.0524 - 0.1514 ∗ ⎥⎦ ⎢⎣ eEAFE, t ⎥⎦
We first test whether the VAR (1) has removed
A first observation from the estimations is that none of autocorrelation from the series. We first get three series of
the intercepts is statistically significantly different from 0. residuals from the model and carry out a multivariate white
Second, except for NIKKEI, all series show statistically noise test.
negative autocorrelation at lag 1. Actually, even for the For the residuals series, we cannot reject the null
NIKKEI series, the lag 1 autocorrelation is negative (albeit hypothesis of (multivariate) white noise. We also run the
statistically not significant). LM test for autocorrelation in residuals (varlmar) for 5
A more interesting finding is that it seems that the lags. None of the statistics reject the null hypothesis of no-
U.S. equity market has a strong impact on the other two autocorrelation.
markets. Others constant, a 10% increase in S&P 500 (log) However, a (unreported) multivariate normality test
return will lead to a 4% and 3% increase in NIKKEI 225 suggests that the hypothesis of number 3 dimensional
and MSCIEAFE index returns the next day, respectively. normality is rejected. It will not hurt the result except for
But the impact from NIKKEI and MSCI EAFE on S&P the efficiency of the estimates. This is not surprising either,
500 is rather limited, both in the sense of magnitude and given the large literature documenting skewness and
significance. A 10% increase in these two indices will lead kurtosis on stock returns. This suggests that a multivariate
to less than 1% in S&P 500, if any. Nor are these two GARCH model may be more appropriate, though this is
markets having any significant impact on each other. beyond the scope of the current paper. Testing VAR
Further discussion on this will be presented when we carry

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Granger Causality, Results confirm my inference in the
previous subsection. In general, S&P500 return Granger
causes the other two and not vice versa. Nor are the other
two series Granger causing each other. However, a 1%
change in S&p 500 today will (statistically or granger)
causing almost 0.5% change of NIKKEI 255 and
MSCIEAFE in the same direction in the next day.
However, the most important observation is that none
of the aforementioned impacts survive after 3 trading days,
which confirms the stability of the system.
While forecasting should be part of the post-estimation
diagnostics, we will postpone it to the last section where
we compare the various models.
IV. COINTEGRATION AND VECM
While the previous section investigates the three
return series, we will investigate the Price Index series in
this section.
A. Pre-estimation diagnostics
Time Trend Test suggests that all of the Price Index
series show significant time trend.
At this point, it is attractive to detrend the Price Index
series. However, we use the undetrended series for two
reasons. On the one hand, the objective of this section is to
practise with cointegration tests and VECM models, both
of which require all our series to contain unit root. We test
the stationarity of detrend Price Index seires. Except for
the (detrended) NIKKEI series, neither of the other two
series contain unit root. On the other hand, it makes thing
more complicated when interpenetrating the results if we
use detrended Price Index. Also, detrending the time series
makes it much harder to compare the forecasting errors in
the two models. Thus, in the remaining of the paper, we
will use (logged) Price Indexes. By doing Edwards
seasonality test statistics and corresponding P-Value of
seasonality tests for the three series, none of the three
series seems to show any seasonality. We then test the
stationary of individual time series. By testing the ADF
and corresponding (Mackinnon) P-values, All the
(undetrended) Price Index series contain unit roots.
Unreported PP tests and KPSS tests support these
conclusions too.
We also carry out a multivariate white noise test and
the p-value of 0.0000 strongly rejects the null hypothesis
of white noise.
Johansen test suggest that there is one cointegration
relation among the three series.
We then run stata command varsoc to select the lag for
fitting VECM model. It seems that all information
criterions and LR test suggest VECM (2) to be the first
choice.
B. Model estimation
Considering the time trend test, we allow time trend in
the VECM too. Thus, the VECM can be written as:
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p −1
Δ y t = αβ y t−1 + ∑
i=1
ΓiΔ y t − i + ν + ε t
Notice that since first order differences of PI are used,
the constant vector v in the equation system represents a
linear trend vector. Also, notice that the summation is till
P-1 lag in the above equation, the lag chosen here is
essentially the same as in the VAR model. For
parsimonious reason, we will only report the coefficients
of interest.
In particular, we first report the vector β. Actually,
β̂= (1, 0.4013, −1.5489).
That is to say, S&P + 0.4013 * NIKKEI − 1.5489
*MSCIFAFE = I (0). I get the S&P + 0.4013 * NIKKEI
− 1.5489 * MSCIFAFE series using Stata command
predict. ADF test strongly reject (P-Value 0.0000) the null
hypothesis of unit root and we infer that the series are
stationary. Thus, the VECM estimation seems work quite
well.
The Γ matrix gives very close interpretation to the one
in VAR model and is thus omitted.
C. Post-estimation
We first test whether the VECM (2) has removed
autocorrelation from the series. Multivariate Ljung-Box
test gives a test statistics of 38.3452 and P-Value of
0.7480. Thus, we cannot reject the null hypothesis of the
residuals being multivariate white noise. LM tests
(unreported) support the previous tests in that no-
autocorrelations are found in the first 5 lags.
However, a (unreported) multivariate normality test
suggests that the hypothesis of number 3 dimensional
normality is rejected. Again, it will not hurt the result
except for the efficiency of the estimates.
The Granger causality tests is quite clear that only
S&P 500 Granger causes the other two and no feedback is
found. Not surprisingly, the results are consistent with
those reported in the VAR model.
V. HORSE RACING OF MODELS
While it is interesting comparing VAR and VECM
models with different lags, it is more interesting
comparing the VAR and VECM model. As discussed in
Section 1, the design of the current study makes it
possible for a fair compare of the two models using
forecasting errors. Table 3 reports the within sample and
out-of-sample RMSE and MAE for the VAR (1) model
and for the VECM (2) model. The reported values are
100 times of the actual value so as to illustrate their
difference. The in-sample RMSE and MAE are calculated
based on data in 2007, the year of which these two
models are estimated. Out-of-sample RMSE and MAE
are calculated based on 2008 data. The AIC and BIC of
the two models are previously reported.
 Table 3: Forecast Errors
Within Sample Out of Sample
MAE RMSE MAE RMSE
Panel A: VAR (1)
S&P 500 0.7978 1.0379 0.5293 0.6977
NIKKEI 0.9760 1.2788 0.7791 1.0086
MSCI EAFE 0.7152 0.9494 0.4226 0.5610
Panel B: VECM (2)
S&P 500 0.7948 1.0369 0.5318 0.6985
NIKKEI 0.9757 1.2788 0.7787 1.0080
MSCI EAFE 0.7034 0.9321 0.4446 0.5750
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