IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fednsr/126.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Recent changes in the U.S. business cycle

Author

Listed:
  • Marcelle Chauvet
  • Simon M. Potter

Abstract

The U.S. business cycle expansion that started in March 1991 is the longest on record. This paper uses statistical techniques to examine whether this expansion is a onetime unique event or whether its length is a result of a change in the stability of the U.S. economy. Bayesian methods are used to estimate a common factor model that allows for structural breaks in the dynamics of a wide range of macroeconomic variables. We find strong evidence that a reduction in volatility is common to the series examined. Further, the reduction in volatility implies that future expansions will be considerably longer than the historical average.

Suggested Citation

  • Marcelle Chauvet & Simon M. Potter, 2001. "Recent changes in the U.S. business cycle," Staff Reports 126, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fednsr:126
    Note: For a published version of this report, see Marcelle Chauvet and Simon Potter, "Recent Changes in the U.S. Business Cycle," Manchester School of Economic and Social Studies69, no. 5 (special issue 2001): 481-508.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr126.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.newyorkfed.org/medialibrary/media/research/staff_reports/sr126.html
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1992. "Have Postwar Economic Fluctuations Been Stabilized?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(4), pages 993-1005, September.
    2. Romer, Christina D., 1994. "Remeasuring Business Cycles," The Journal of Economic History, Cambridge University Press, vol. 54(3), pages 573-609, September.
    3. Watson, Mark W, 1994. "Business-Cycle Durations and Postwar Stabilization of the U.S. Economy," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 84(1), pages 24-46, March.
    4. Olivier Blanchard & John Simon, 2001. "The Long and Large Decline in U.S. Output Volatility," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 32(1), pages 135-174.
    5. M Sensier & D van Dijk, 2001. "Short-term Volatility Versus Long-term Growth: Evidence in US Macroeconomic Time Series," Economics Discussion Paper Series 0103, Economics, The University of Manchester.
    6. 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.
    7. Koop, Gary & Potter, Simon M., 1998. "Bayes factors and nonlinearity: Evidence from economic time series1," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 88(2), pages 251-281, November.
    8. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    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. Cover, James P. & Pecorino, Paul, 2005. "The length of US business expansions: When did the break in the data occur?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 27(3), pages 452-471, September.
    2. Potter Simon M., 2000. "A Nonlinear Model of the Business Cycle," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 4(2), pages 1-11, July.
    3. 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.
    4. Robert Buckle & David Haugh & Peter Thomson, 2003. "Calm after the storm? Supply-side contributions to New Zealand's GDP volatility decline," New Zealand Economic Papers, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(2), pages 217-243.
    5. van Dijk, D.J.C. & Osborn, D.R. & Sensier, M., 2002. "Changes in variability of the business cycle in the G7 countries," Econometric Institute Research Papers EI 2002-28, Erasmus University Rotterdam, Erasmus School of Economics (ESE), Econometric Institute.
    6. 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.
    7. L.A. Gil-Alana, 2005. "Fractional Cyclical Structures & Business Cycles in the Specification of the US Real Output," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(1-2), pages 99-126.
    8. McKay, Alisdair & Reis, Ricardo, 2008. "The brevity and violence of contractions and expansions," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 738-751, May.
    9. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Diebolt, Claude & Ferrara, Laurent, 2015. "A new monthly chronology of the US industrial cycles in the prewar economy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 3-9.
    10. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the Business Cycle Changed and Why?," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 2002, Volume 17, pages 159-230, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    11. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2003. "Has the business cycle changed?," Proceedings - Economic Policy Symposium - Jackson Hole, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, pages 9-56.
    12. Lopez-Buenache, German, 2019. "The evolution of monetary policy effectiveness under macroeconomic instability," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 83(C), pages 221-233.
    13. WenShwo Fang & Stephen M. Miller, 2014. "Output Growth and its Volatility: The Gold Standard through the Great Moderation," Southern Economic Journal, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 80(3), pages 728-751, January.
    14. Gaetano Antinolfi & Celso Brunetti, 2019. "Economic volatility and financial markets: The case of mortgage‐backed securities," Financial Markets, Institutions & Instruments, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 28(2), pages 85-113, May.
    15. Chang‐Jin Kim & Jeremy M. Piger & Richard Startz, 2007. "The Dynamic Relationship between Permanent and Transitory Components of U.S. Business Cycles," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 39(1), pages 187-204, February.
    16. Altug, Sumru & Bildirici, Melike, 2010. "Business Cycles around the Globe: A Regime-switching Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7968, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Kim, Chang-Jin & Piger, Jeremy, 2002. "Common stochastic trends, common cycles, and asymmetry in economic fluctuations," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(6), pages 1189-1211, September.
    18. Kim, Chang-Jin & Nelson, Charles R & Piger, Jeremy, 2004. "The Less-Volatile U.S. Economy: A Bayesian Investigation of Timing, Breadth, and Potential Explanations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22(1), pages 80-93, January.
    19. Charles W. Calomiris & Christopher Hanes, 1994. "Historical Macroeconomics and American Macroeconomic History," NBER Working Papers 4935, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    20. Selgin, George & Lastrapes, William D. & White, Lawrence H., 2012. "Has the Fed been a failure?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 34(3), pages 569-596.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    recession; Bayesian methods; common factor; business cycles;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E52 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Monetary Policy, Central Banking, and the Supply of Money and Credit - - - Monetary Policy

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:fip:fednsr:126. 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: Gabriella Bucciarelli (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbnyus.html .

    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.