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Evaluating non-structural measures of the business cycle

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  • Timothy Cogley

Abstract

This paper evaluates a number of non-structural measures of the business cycle. It adopts a structural definition of the cycle, interprets non-structural measures as noisy approximations, and seeks a proxy that is reliable across a variety of plausible trend-cycle structures. The results favor a consumption-based measure proposed by Cochrane (1994). Across a variety of structures, it has the highest correlation and coherence with structural cycles, and best matches their dynamic properties. When applied to U.S. data, consumption-based measures conform closely to the dates of NBER recessions. They also yield a strong negative correlation between the cyclical components of productivity and hours, a fact that deepens the challenge to models which emphasize technology shocks as the primary source of business cycles.

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File URL: http://www.sf.frb.org/econrsrch/econrev/97-3/3-21.pdf
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Bibliographic Info

Article provided by Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco in its journal Economic Review.

Volume (Year): (1997)
Issue (Month): ()
Pages: 3-21

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Handle: RePEc:fip:fedfer:y:1997:p:3-21:n:3

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Related research

Keywords: Business cycles;

References

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  1. Edward C. Prescott, 1986. "Theory ahead of business cycle measurement," Quarterly Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis, issue Fall, pages 9-22.
  2. Faust, Jon & Leeper, Eric M, 1997. "When Do Long-Run Identifying Restrictions Give Reliable Results?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 15(3), pages 345-53, July.
  3. Attanasio, O. & Weber, G., 1995. "Is consumption growth consistent with intertemporal optimization? evidence from the consumer expenditure survey," Open Access publications from University College London http://discovery.ucl.ac.u, University College London.
  4. Beveridge, Stephen & Nelson, Charles R., 1981. "A new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the `business cycle'," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 151-174.
  5. Nelson, Charles R & Kang, Heejoon, 1979. "Spurious Periodicity in Inappropriately Detrended Time Series," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 161, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
  6. Harvey, A C & Jaeger, A, 1993. "Detrending, Stylized Facts and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 231-47, July-Sept.
  7. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November.
  8. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
  9. Craig Burnside & Martin Eichenbaum & Sergio Rebelo, 1993. "Labor Hoarding and the Business Cycle," NBER Working Papers 3556, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  10. Shea, John, 1995. "Union Contracts and the Life-Cycle/Permanent-Income Hypothesis," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 85(1), pages 186-200, March.
  11. Lippi, Marco & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 1993. "Diffusion of Technical Change and the Decomposition of Output into Trend and Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 775, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  12. Danny Quah, 1991. "The Relative Importance of Permanent and Transitory Components: Identi- fication and Some Theoretical Bounds," NBER Technical Working Papers 0106, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  13. Arthur F. Burns & Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946. "Measuring Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn46-1, October.
  14. Lawrence J. Christiano, 1988. "Searching For a Break in GNP," NBER Working Papers 2695, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  15. Evans, George W & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 1993. "Information, Forecasts and Measurement of the Business Cycle," CEPR Discussion Papers 756, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  16. Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1988. "A nonparametric investigation of duration dependence in the American business cycle," Working Paper Series / Economic Activity Section 90, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
  17. Cogley, Timothy, 1990. "International Evidence on the Size of the Random Walk in Output," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 501-18, June.
  18. Romer, Christina D., 1994. "Remeasuring Business Cycles," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(03), pages 573-609, September.
  19. Robert J. Hodrick & Edward Prescott, 1981. "Post-War U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Discussion Papers 451, Northwestern University, Center for Mathematical Studies in Economics and Management Science.
  20. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1993. "Low frequency filtering and real business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 207-231.
  21. Cochrane, John H, 1994. "Permanent and Transitory Components of GNP and Stock Prices," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, MIT Press, vol. 109(1), pages 241-65, February.
  22. Meghir, Costas & Weber, Guglielmo, 1996. "Intertemporal Nonseparability or Borrowing Restrictions? A Disaggregate Analysis Using a U.S. Consumption Panel," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 64(5), pages 1151-81, September.
  23. Robert J. Gordon, 1980. "The "End-of-Expansion" Phenomenon in Short-run Productivity Behavior," NBER Working Papers 0427, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
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Citations

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Cited by:
  1. John P. Judd & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1998. "Taylor's rule and the Fed, 1970-1997," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, pages 3-16.
  2. St-Amant, P. & van Norden, S., 1997. "Measurement of the Output Gap: A Discussion of Recent Research at the Bank of Canada," Technical Reports 79, Bank of Canada.
  3. P J Pérez, 2001. "Cyclical Properties in the Main Western Economies," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 33, Economics, The Univeristy of Manchester.
  4. Alain GUAY & Pierre SAINT-AMANT, 2005. "Do the Hodrick-Prescott and Baxter-King Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Annales d'Economie et de Statistique, ENSAE, issue 77, pages 133-155.
  5. Ozlale, Umit, 2003. "Price stability vs. output stability: tales of federal reserve administrations," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1595-1610, July.
  6. St-Amant, P. & Tessier, D., 1998. "A Discussion of the Reliability of Results Obtained with Long-Run Identifying Restrictions," Working Papers 98-4, Bank of Canada.
  7. Ozbek, Levent & Ozlale, Umit, 2005. "Employing the extended Kalman filter in measuring the output gap," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 29(9), pages 1611-1622, September.
  8. Dittmar, Robert & Dueker, Michael & Fischer, Andreas M, 2002. "Stochastic Capital Depreciation and the Comovement of Hours and Productivity," CEPR Discussion Papers 3192, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  9. Lamey, L. & Deleersnyder, B. & Dekimpe, M.G. & Steenkamp, J-B.E.M., 2005. "The Impact of Business-Cycle Fluctuations on Private-Label Share," Research Paper ERS-2005-061-MKT, Erasmus Research Institute of Management (ERIM), ERIM is the joint research institute of the Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and the Erasmus School of Economics (ESE) at Erasmus Uni.
  10. Lalonde, René, 1998. "Le PIB potentiel des États-Unis et ses déterminants : la productivité de la main-d'oeuvre et le taux d'activité," Working Papers 98-13, Bank of Canada.
  11. Timothy Cogley & Desiree Schaan, 1995. "Using consumption to track movements in trend GDP," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Sep 1.
  12. Luca Benati, 2001. "Band-pass filtering, cointegration, and business cycle analysis," Bank of England working papers 142, Bank of England.
  13. Guay, A & St-Amant, P, 1996. "Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Technical Reports 78, Bank of Canada.
  14. Erinç Yeldan & Kývýlcým Metin-Özcan & Ebru Voyvoda, 1999. "Dynamics of Macroeconomic Adjustment in a Globalized Developing Economy : Growth, Accumulation and Distribution, Turkey 1969-1998," Departmental Working Papers 995, Bilkent University, Department of Economics.
  15. Odile Chagny & Jörg Döpke, 2001. "Measures of the Output Gap in the Euro-Zone: An Empirical Assessment of Selected Methods," Kiel Working Papers 1053, Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
  16. Chantal Dupasquier & Alain Guay & Pierre St-Amant, 1997. "A Comparison of Alternative Methodologies for Estimating Potential Output and the Output Gap," Working Papers 97-5, Bank of Canada.

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