Luc Dresse () (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department) Christophe Van Nieuwenhuyze () (National Bank of Belgium, Research Department)
Abstract
This paper uses a frequency domain approach to gain insight into the correlation between survey indicators and year-on-year GDP growth. Using the Baxter-King filter, we split up each series into three components: a short-term, a business cycle (oscillations between 18 and 96 months) and a long-term component. We then calculate how much of the variation of the survey series and GDP growth can be ascribed to these different components. Finally, we use this information together with an analysis of the correlation between survey indicators and year-on-year GDP growth at the different frequencies to explain their overall correlation. We show that survey indicators, similar to year-on-year GDP growth, do not perfectly reflect business cycle movements but contain cycles of other frequencies. Long-term cycles, in particular, are a nontrivial part of the series' variance. Furthermore, there exist some clear relations between the weight of these cycles in the survey indicators and their correlation with GDP growth. In general, the larger the business cycle component, the larger the correlation, while the opposite is true for the short-term component. The evidence for the long-term component is mixed: although a long-term component seems necessary as the correlation at this frequency is the highest, strong or weak long-term components are typically idiosyncratic, dragging down the overall correlation between the indicator and year-on-year GDP growth. The paper applies this methodology to the euro area countries (EC survey indicators) and to Belgium separately (NBB business survey indicators). The results are highly comparable
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Paper provided by National Bank of Belgium in its series Research series with number
200803-31.
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.:
Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 1999.
"The Band pass filter,"
Working Paper
9906, Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.
[Downloadable!]
Other versions:
Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 1999.
"The Band Pass Filter,"
NBER Working Papers
7257, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)
Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003.
"The Band Pass Filter,"
International Economic Review,
Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, 05.
[Downloadable!] (restricted)