IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/intfor/v27y2011i4p1006-1026.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Calling recessions in real time

Author

Listed:
  • Hamilton, James D.

Abstract

This paper surveys efforts to automate the dating of business cycle turning points. Doing this on a real time, out-of-sample basis is a bigger challenge than many academics might assume, due to factors such as data revisions and changes in economic relationships over time. The paper stresses the value of both simulated real-time analysis -- looking at what the inference of a proposed model would have been using data as they were actually released at the time -- and actual real-time analysis, in which a researcher stakes his or her reputation on publicly using the model to generate out-of-sample, real-time predictions. The immediate publication capabilities of the internet make the latter a realistic option for researchers today, and many are taking advantage of it. The paper reviews a number of approaches to dating business cycle turning points and emphasizes the fundamental trade-off between parsimony -- trying to keep the model as simple and robust as possible -- and making full use of the available information. Different approaches have different advantages, and the paper concludes that there may be gains from combining the best features of several different approaches.

Suggested Citation

  • Hamilton, James D., 2011. "Calling recessions in real time," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1006-1026, October.
  • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:27:y:2011:i:4:p:1006-1026
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207010001391
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or search for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1998. "Predicting U.S. Recessions: Financial Variables As Leading Indicators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 45-61, February.
    2. Marcelle Chauvet & Simon Potter, 2005. "Forecasting recessions using the yield curve," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(2), pages 77-103.
    3. Thomas B. King & Andrew T. Levin & Roberto Perli, 2007. "Financial market perceptions of recession risk," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2007-57, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    4. Marcelle Chauvet & James D. Hamilton, 2006. "Dating Business Cycle Turning Points," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Nonlinear Time Series Analysis of Business Cycles, pages 1-54, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    5. Michael Dueker, 2005. "Dynamic Forecasts of Qualitative Variables: A Qual VAR Model of U.S. Recessions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 23, pages 96-104, January.
    6. Gilchrist, Simon & Yankov, Vladimir & Zakrajsek, Egon, 2009. "Credit market shocks and economic fluctuations: Evidence from corporate bond and stock markets," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(4), pages 471-493, May.
    7. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    8. Lahiri,Kajal & Moore,Geoffrey H. (ed.), 1993. "Leading Economic Indicators," Cambridge Books, Cambridge University Press, number 9780521438582.
    9. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
    10. Andrew Harvey (ed.), 1994. "Time Series," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, volume 0, number 599.
    11. Arthur F. Burns & Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946. "Measuring Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn46-1, October.
    12. Maximo Camacho & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2010. "Introducing the euro-sting: Short-term indicator of euro area growth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 663-694.
    13. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    14. Chauvet, Marcelle, 1998. "An Econometric Characterization of Business Cycle Dynamics with Factor Structure and Regime Switching," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 969-996, November.
    15. James D. Hamilton & Michael T. Owyang, 2012. "The Propagation of Regional Recessions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 935-947, November.
    16. Harding, Don & Pagan, Adrian, 2006. "Synchronization of cycles," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 59-79, May.
    17. Heikki Kauppi & Pentti Saikkonen, 2008. "Predicting U.S. Recessions with Dynamic Binary Response Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 90(4), pages 777-791, November.
    18. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1993. "Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number stoc93-1, October.
    19. Dean Croushore & Tom Stark, 2003. "A Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists: Does the Data Vintage Matter?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 605-617, August.
    20. Chauvet, Marcelle & Piger, Jeremy, 2008. "A Comparison of the Real-Time Performance of Business Cycle Dating Methods," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 42-49, January.
    21. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W. (ed.), 1993. "Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting," National Bureau of Economic Research Books, University of Chicago Press, edition 1, number 9780226774886, December.
    22. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1998. "Business Cycle Turning Points, A New Coincident Index, And Tests Of Duration Dependence Based On A Dynamic Factor Model With Regime Switching," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 188-201, May.
    23. Hamilton, James D., 1990. "Analysis of time series subject to changes in regime," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 45(1-2), pages 39-70.
    24. Edward E. Leamer, 2008. "What's a Recession, Anyway?," NBER Working Papers 14221, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Maximo Camacho & Gabriel Perez-Quiros & Pilar Poncela, 2010. "Green shoots in the euro area. A real time measure," Working Papers 1026, Banco de España.
    26. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    27. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1993. "A Procedure for Predicting Recessions with Leading Indicators: Econometric Issues and Recent Experience," NBER Chapters, in: Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting, pages 95-156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    28. Oscar Jorda & Travis Berge, 2009. "The Classification of Economic Activity into Expansions and Recessions," Working Papers 918, University of California, Davis, Department of Economics.
    29. Jonathan H. Wright, 2006. "The yield curve and predicting recessions," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2006-07, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Chauvet, Marcelle & Potter, Simon, 2013. "Forecasting Output," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 141-194, Elsevier.
    2. Pauwels, Laurent & Vasnev, Andrey, 2014. "Forecast combination for U.S. recessions with real-time data," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 138-148.
    3. Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2011. "Identification of Slowdowns and Accelerations for the Euro Area Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(3), pages 335-364, June.
    4. Morais, Igor Alexandre C. & Chauvet, Marcelle, 2011. "Leading Indicators for the Capital Goods Industry," Brazilian Review of Econometrics, Sociedade Brasileira de Econometria - SBE, vol. 31(1), March.
    5. Vrontos, Spyridon D. & Galakis, John & Vrontos, Ioannis D., 2021. "Modeling and predicting U.S. recessions using machine learning techniques," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 647-671.
    6. Catherine Doz & Laurent Ferrara & Pierre-Alain Pionnier, 2020. "Business cycle dynamics after the Great Recession: An Extended Markov-Switching Dynamic Factor Model," Working Papers halshs-02443364, HAL.
    7. Catherine Doz & Peter Fuleky, 2019. "Dynamic Factor Models," Working Papers 2019-4, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    8. Cem Çakmakli & Hamza Dem I˙rcani & Sumru Altug, 2021. "Modelling of Economic and Financial Conditions for Real‐Time Prediction of Recessions," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(3), pages 663-685, June.
    9. Catherine Doz & Peter Fuleky, 2019. "Dynamic Factor Models," PSE Working Papers halshs-02262202, HAL.
    10. Catherine Doz & Peter Fuleky, 2019. "Dynamic Factor Models," Working Papers halshs-02262202, HAL.
    11. Sergey V. Smirnov & Nikolay V. Kondrashov & Anna V. Petronevich, 2017. "Dating Cyclical Turning Points for Russia: Formal Methods and Informal Choices," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 13(1), pages 53-73, May.
    12. Sun, Jiandong & Feng, Shuaizhang & Hu, Yingyao, 2021. "Misclassification errors in labor force statuses and the early identification of economic recessions," Journal of Asian Economics, Elsevier, vol. 75(C).
    13. Nissilä, Wilma, 2020. "Probit based time series models in recession forecasting – A survey with an empirical illustration for Finland," BoF Economics Review 7/2020, Bank of Finland.
    14. Issler, Joao Victor & Vahid, Farshid, 2006. "The missing link: using the NBER recession indicator to construct coincident and leading indices of economic activity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 281-303, May.
    15. Rachidi Kotchoni & Dalibor Stevanovic, 2016. "Forecasting U.S. Recessions and Economic Activity," EconomiX Working Papers 2016-40, University of Paris Nanterre, EconomiX.
    16. Michael Funke & Harm Bandholz, 2003. "In search of leading indicators of economic activity in Germany," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 22(4), pages 277-297.
    17. Issler, Joao Victor & Vahid, Farshid, 2006. "The missing link: using the NBER recession indicator to construct coincident and leading indices of economic activity," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 281-303, May.
    18. Benoît Bellone, 2006. "Une lecture probabiliste du cycle d’affaires américain," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 172(1), pages 63-81.
    19. Carriero, Andrea & Marcellino, Massimiliano, 2007. "A comparison of methods for the construction of composite coincident and leading indexes for the UK," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 219-236.
    20. Rachidi Kotchoni & Dalibor Stevanovic, 2020. "GDP Forecast Accuracy During Recessions," Working Papers 20-06, Chair in macroeconomics and forecasting, University of Quebec in Montreal's School of Management.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycles Turning points Real-time data Markov-switching;

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:27:y:2011:i:4:p:1006-1026. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.