Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR)

Structural Vector Autoregression (SVAR) is a multivariate time-series model, developed by Christopher Sims (1980), that extends the reduced-form VAR by imposing economically motivated identifying restrictions on contemporaneous relationships among variables. SVAR enables researchers to isolate orthogonal structural shocks and trace their causal dynamic effects through impulse response functions and forecast error variance decompositions, making it a cornerstone of modern empirical macroeconomics.