IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedlrv/y2003imarp47-61nv.85no.2.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Identifying business cycle turning points in real time

Author

Listed:
  • Marcelle Chauvet
  • Jeremy M. Piger

Abstract

This paper evaluates the ability of a statistical regime-switching model to identify turning points in U.S. economic activity in real time. The authors work with a Markov-switching model fit to real gross domestic product and employment data that, when estimated on the entire postwar sample, provides a chronology of business cycle peak and trough dates close to that produced by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER). Next, they investigate how accurately and quickly the model would have identified NBER-dated turning points had it been used in real time for the past 40 years. In general, the model identifies turning point dates in real time that are close to the NBER dates. For both business cycle peaks and troughs, the model provides systematic improvement over the NBER in the speed at which turning points are identified. Importantly, the model achieves this with few instances of “false positives.” Overall, the evidence suggests that the regime-switching model could be a useful supplement to the NBER Business Cycle Dating Committee for establishing turning point dates. It appears to capture the features of the NBER chronology accurately and swiftly; furthermore, the method is transparent and consistent.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcelle Chauvet & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Identifying business cycle turning points in real time," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Mar, pages 47-61.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:y:2003:i:mar:p:47-61:n:v.85no.2
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/03/03/ChauvetPiger.pdf
    Download Restriction: no

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hansen, Bruce E, 1992. "The Likelihood Ratio Test under Nonstandard Conditions: Testing the Markov Switching Model of GNP," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(S), pages 61-82, Suppl. De.
    2. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R, 1999. "Friedman's Plucking Model of Business Fluctuations: Tests and Estimates of Permanent and Transitory Components," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 31(3), pages 317-334, August.
    3. Beaudry, Paul & Koop, Gary, 1993. "Do recessions permanently change output?," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 31(2), pages 149-163, April.
    4. Croushore, Dean & Stark, Tom, 2001. "A real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 111-130, November.
    5. Jeremy Piger & James Morley & Chang-Jin Kim, 2005. "Nonlinearity and the permanent effects of recessions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 20(2), pages 291-309.
    6. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1996. "Measuring Business Cycles: A Modern Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 67-77, February.
    7. Albert, James H & Chib, Siddhartha, 1993. "Bayes Inference via Gibbs Sampling of Autoregressive Time Series Subject to Markov Mean and Variance Shifts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, January.
    8. Margaret M. McConnell, 1998. "Rethinking the value of initial claims as a forecasting tool," Current Issues in Economics and Finance, Federal Reserve Bank of New York, vol. 4(Nov).
    9. 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.
    10. 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.
    11. Friedman, Milton, 1993. "The "Plucking Model" of Business Fluctuations Revisited," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(2), pages 171-177, April.
    12. William T. Gavin & Kevin L. Kliesen, 2002. "Unemployment insurance claims and economic activity," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue May, pages 15-28.
    13. Boldin, Michael D, 1994. "Dating Turning Points in the Business Cycle," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 67(1), pages 97-131, January.
    14. Layton, Allan P., 1996. "Dating and predicting phase changes in the U.S. business cycle," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 12(3), pages 417-428, September.
    15. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "State-Space Models with Regime Switching: Classical and Gibbs-Sampling Approaches with Applications," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262112388, March.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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:fip:fedlrv:y:2003:i:mar:p:47-61:n:v.85no.2. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Kathy Cosgrove). General contact details of provider: http://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    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 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.

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

    IDEAS is a RePEc service hosted by the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis . RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.