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On the Periodic Structure of the Business Cycle

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Author Info
Eric Ghysels (Cowles Foundation, Yale University)

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Abstract

In this paper, we test whether a regime shift from expansion to recession and vice versa is, ceteris paribus, equally likely throughout the year. If not, then it may, for instance, be less likely to get out of a recession in the middle of the winter than it is, say, in the spring or summer. We make use of Markov switching regime models to test the hypothesis of interest. The evidence is based on the conventional NBER business cycle chronology as well as alternatives to it. We find that recessions exhibit a periodic pattern in their switching regime transition probability structure. It is particularly the months associated with Christmas and spring that appear to have higher switching probabilities from recession to expansion. Our results also imply that a recession and an expansion are, on average, longer or shorter depending on what time of the year they start. Such results suggest the presence of seasonal patterns in business cycle durations. One should note though that such a notion of seasonality is quite different from the common one based on unobserved component linear time series models. Our paper investigates issues which go beyond linear dependence between seasonality and business cycles.

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Publisher Info
Paper provided by Cowles Foundation, Yale University in its series Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers with number 1028.

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Length: 25 pages
Date of creation: Jul 1992
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Handle: RePEc:cwl:cwldpp:1028

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Postal: Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA
Phone: (203) 432-3702
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Web page: http://cowles.econ.yale.edu/
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Postal: Cowles Foundation, Yale University, Box 208281, New Haven, CT 06520-8281 USA

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Related research
Keywords: Seasonality business cycles Markov switching regime models periodic structures nonlinear time series

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References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:
  1. McCulloch, J Hutson, 1975. "The Monte Carlo Cycle in Business Activity," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 303-21, September.
  2. Neftci, Salih N, 1984. "Are Economic Time Series Asymmetric over the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 307-28, April. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  3. Savin, N Eugene, 1977. "A Test of the Monte Carlo Hypothesis: Comment," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 15(4), pages 613-17, October.
  4. Wecker, William E, 1979. "Predicting the Turning Points of a Time Series," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 35-50, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  5. Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1990. "Have postwar economic fluctuations been stabilized?," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 33, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
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  6. Ghysels, Eric & Hall, Alastair, 1990. "Are consumption-based intertemporal capital asset pricing models structural?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 121-139. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  7. Lars Peter Hansen & Thomas J. Sargent, 1990. "Recursive Linear Models of Dynamic Economies," NBER Working Papers 3479, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. Eric Ghysels, 1992. "Christmas, Spring and the Dawning of Economic Recovery," Cowles Foundation Discussion Papers 1027, Cowles Foundation, Yale University. [Downloadable!]
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  9. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1989. "Scoring the Leading Indicators," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 62(3), pages 369-91, July. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  10. Thomas J. Sargent & Christopher A. Sims, 1977. "Business cycle modeling without pretending to have too much a priori economic theory," Working Papers 55, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. [Downloadable!]
  11. Osborn, Denise R & Smith, Jeremy P, 1989. "The Performance of Periodic Autoregressive Models in Forecasting Seasonal U. K. Consumption," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 7(1), pages 117-27, January.
  12. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 1989. "New Indexes Of Coincident And Leading Economic Indicators," Papers 178d, Harvard - J.F. Kennedy School of Government.
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  13. Osborn, Denise R, 1988. "Seasonality and Habit Persistence in a Life Cycle Model of Consumptio n," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(4), pages 255-66, October-D. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  14. Ghysels, E., 1991. "Are Business Cycle Turning Points Uniformly Distributed Throughout the Year?," Cahiers de recherche 9135, Centre interuniversitaire de recherche en économie quantitative, CIREQ.
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  15. Bell, William R & Hillmer, Steven C, 1984. "Issues Involved with the Seasonal Adjustment of Economic Time Series," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 2(4), pages 291-320, October.
  16. Victor Zarnowitz, 1963. "Cloos on Reference Dates and Leading Indicators: A Comment," Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 36, pages 461. [Downloadable!]
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(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Lawrence J. Christiano & Richard M. Todd, 2000. "The Conventional Treatment of Seasonality in Business Cycle Analysis: Does it Create Distortions?," NBER Technical Working Papers 0266, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
  2. D R Osborn & A Matas-Mir, 2001. "Does Seasonality Change over the Business Cycle? An Investigation using Monthly Industrial Production Series," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 09, Economics, The Univeristy of Manchester. [Downloadable!]
    Other versions:
  3. Klaassen, F., 1999. "Long swings in exchange rates : are they really in the data," Discussion Paper 8, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Eric Ghysels & Robert E. McCulloch & Ruey S. Tsay, 1994. "Bayesian Inference for Periodic Regime-Switching Models," CIRANO Working Papers 94s-15, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
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  5. Tim Bollerslev & Eric Ghysels, 1994. "On Periodic Autogressive Conditional Heteroskedasticity," CIRANO Working Papers 94s-03, CIRANO. [Downloadable!]
  6. Klaassen, F., 1999. "Purchasing power parity : evidence from a new test," Discussion Paper 9, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research. [Downloadable!]
  7. Francis X. Diebold & Glenn D. Rudebusch, 1994. "Measuring Business Cycles: A Modern Perspective," NBER Working Papers 4643, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  8. D R Osborn & A Matas-Mir, 2003. "The Extent of Seasonal/Business Cycle Interactions in European Industrial Production," Centre for Growth and Business Cycle Research Discussion Paper Series 38, Economics, The Univeristy of Manchester. [Downloadable!]
  9. Renee Fry, 2002. "International SVAR Factor Modelling," School of Economics and Finance Discussion Papers and Working Papers Series 109, School of Economics and Finance, Queensland University of Technology. [Downloadable!]
  10. Peria, Maria Soledad Martinez, 1999. "A regime - switching approach to studying speculative attacks : focus on European Monetary System crises," Policy Research Working Paper Series 2132, The World Bank. [Downloadable!]
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