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Sparse HP Filter: Finding Kinks in the COVID-19 Contact Rate

Author

Listed:
  • Sokbae Lee
  • Yuan Liao
  • Myung Hwan Seo
  • Youngki Shin

Abstract

In this paper, we estimate the time-varying COVID-19 contact rate of a Susceptible-Infected-Recovered (SIR) model. Our measurement of the contact rate is constructed using data on actively infected, recovered and deceased cases. We propose a new trend filtering method that is a variant of the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter, constrained by the number of possible kinks. We term it the sparse HP filter and apply it to daily data from five countries: Canada, China, South Korea, the UK and the US. Our new method yields the kinks that are well aligned with actual events in each country. We find that the sparse HP filter provides a fewer kinks than the l1 trend filter, while both methods fitting data equally well. Theoretically, we establish risk consistency of both the sparse HP and l1 trend filters. Ultimately, we propose to use time-varying contact growth rates to document and monitor outbreaks of COVID-19.

Suggested Citation

  • Sokbae Lee & Yuan Liao & Myung Hwan Seo & Youngki Shin, 2020. "Sparse HP Filter: Finding Kinks in the COVID-19 Contact Rate," Department of Economics Working Papers 2020-06, McMaster University.
    • Handle: RePEc:mcm:deptwp:2020-06
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Citations

    RePEc Biblio mentions

    As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
    1. > Economics of Welfare > Health Economics > Economics of Pandemics > Specific pandemics > Covid-19 > Health > Measurement

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    Cited by:

    1. Soo Beom Choi & Insung Ahn, 2020. "Forecasting imported COVID-19 cases in South Korea using mobile roaming data," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 15(11), pages 1-10, November.
    2. Jonas E. Arias & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramírez & Minchul Shin, 2021. "Bayesian Estimation of Epidemiological Models: Methods, Causality, and Policy Trade-Offs," CESifo Working Paper Series 8977, CESifo.
    3. Julliard, Christian & Shi, Ran & Yuan, Kathy, 2023. "The spread of COVID-19 in London: Network effects and optimal lockdowns," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 235(2), pages 2125-2154.
    4. Ziwei Mei & Peter C. B. Phillips & Zhentao Shi, 2022. "The boosted HP filter is more general than you might think," Papers 2209.09810, arXiv.org.
    5. Tobias Hartl, 2021. "Monitoring the pandemic: A fractional filter for the COVID-19 contact rate," Papers 2102.10067, arXiv.org.
    6. Webel, Karsten, 2022. "A review of some recent developments in the modelling and seasonal adjustment of infra-monthly time series," Discussion Papers 31/2022, Deutsche Bundesbank.
    7. Jonas E. Arias & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan F. Rubio-Ramirez & Minchul Shin, 2021. "Bayesian Estimation of Epidemiological Models: Methods, Causality, and Policy Trade-Offs," Working Papers 21-18, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    8. Cai, Junyang & Zhou, Jian, 2022. "How many asymptomatic cases were unconfirmed in the US COVID-19 pandemic? The evidence from a serological survey," Chaos, Solitons & Fractals, Elsevier, vol. 164(C).
    9. Hartl, Tobias, 2021. "Monitoring the pandemic: A fractional filter for the COVID-19 contact rate," VfS Annual Conference 2021 (Virtual Conference): Climate Economics 242380, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    10. Saulius Jokubaitis & Dmitrij Celov, 2022. "Business Cycle Synchronization in the EU: A Regional-Sectoral Look through Soft-Clustering and Wavelet Decomposition," Papers 2206.14128, arXiv.org.
    11. Jonas E. Arias & Jesús Fernández-Villaverde & Juan Rubio Ramírez & Minchul Shin, 2021. "The Causal Effects of Lockdown Policies on Health and Macroeconomic Outcomes," NBER Working Papers 28617, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    12. Richard K. Crump & Nikolay Gospodinov & Hunter Wieman, 2023. "Sparse Trend Estimation," Staff Reports 1049, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19; trend filtering; knots; piecewise linear fitting; Hodrick-Prescott filter;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes

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