Estimation of grouped time-varying network vector autoregressive models

Degui Li, Bin Peng, Songqiao Tang, Weibiao Wu

The Annals of Statistics · 2026 · Volume 54 · Issue 2

Abstract

This paper introduces a flexible time-varying network vector autoregressive model framework for large-scale time series. A latent group structure is imposed on the heterogeneous and node-specific time-varying momentum and network spillover effects so that the number of unknown time-varying coefficients to be estimated can be reduced considerably. A classic agglomerative clustering algorithm with nonparametrically estimated distance matrix is combined with a ratio criterion to consistently estimate the latent group number and membership. A postgrouping local linear smoothing method is proposed to estimate the group-specific time-varying momentum and network effects, substantially improving the convergence rates of the preliminary estimates which ignore the latent structure. We further modify the methodology and theory to allow for structural breaks in either the group membership, group number or group-specific coefficient functions. Numerical studies including Monte-Carlo simulation and an empirical application are presented to examine the finite-sample performance of the developed model and methodology.

Keywords

62G05; 62G10; 62M10; cluster analysis; latent groups; local linear estimator; network VAR; time-varying coefficients;

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