Quantifying spillovers among regions

Abstract

The standard procedure for quantifying spillover effects of changes in economic fundamentals among separate regions (or countries) is to link the regions through predetermined weights – for example through fixed weighted trade indices or fixed spatial weights based on geographical distance. We provide a method for quantifying spillover effects among the U.S., the euro area, and the U.K. using spatial weights that are determined endogenously. We specify a new spatially augmented VAR model and we introduce a Bayesian estimation technique to freely estimate and quantify spatial interactions. We are able to quantify the effects of shocks to economic fundamentals in the three regions considered without imposing a priori restrictions on the size and directions of the spillovers. To illustrate our technique, we quantify the spillover effects of a series of shocks, including the recent rises in inflation and money supply shocks, in each of the three regions under consideration on the other regions.