IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/nbr/nberwo/4014.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

A Procedure for Predicting Recessions With Leading Indicators: Econometric Issues and Recent Experience

Author

Listed:
  • James H. Stock
  • Mark W. Watson

Abstract

This paper examines the forecasting performance of various leading economic indicators and composite indexes since 1988. in particular during the onset of the 1990 recession. The primary focus is on an experimental recession index (tile "XRI"). a composite index which provides probabilistic forecasts of whether the U.S. economy will be in a recession six months hence. After detailing its construction, the paper examines the out-of-sample performance of the XRI and a related forecast of overall economic growth. the experimental leading index (XLI). These indexes performed well from 1988 through the summer of 1990 - for example. in June 1990 the XLI model forecasted a .4% (annual rate) decline in the experimental coincident index from June through September. when in fact the decline was only slightly greater,.8%. However. the XLI failed to forecast the sharp declines of October and November 1990. After exploring several possible explanations. we conclude that one important source of the forecast error was the use of financial variables during a recession that was not associated with a particularly tight monetary policy. Financial indicators -- and the experimental index -- were not alone. however. in failing to forecast the 1990 recession, An examination of 45 economic indicators shows that almost all failed to forecast the 1990downturn. and the few that did provided unclear signals before the recessions of the 19705 and 1980s.

Suggested Citation

  • James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1992. "A Procedure for Predicting Recessions With Leading Indicators: Econometric Issues and Recent Experience," NBER Working Papers 4014, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
  • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:4014
    Note: EFG
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.nber.org/papers/w4014.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Rendigs Fels & C. Elton Hinshaw, 1968. "Forecasting and Recognizing Business Cycle Turning Points," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number fels68-1.
    2. 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.
    3. Beatrice N. Vaccara & Victor Zarnowitz, 1978. "Forecasting with the Index of Leading Indicators," NBER Working Papers 0244, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Wecker, William E, 1979. "Predicting the Turning Points of a Time Series," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 52(1), pages 35-50, January.
    5. Auerbach, Alan J, 1982. "The Index of Leading Indicators: "Measurement without Theory," Thirty-Five Years Later," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 64(4), pages 589-595, November.
    6. Zarnowitz, Victor & Moore, Geoffrey H, 1982. "Sequential Signals of Recession and Recovery," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 55(1), pages 57-85, January.
    7. 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.
    8. Singleton, Kenneth J, 1980. "A Latent Time Series Model of the Cyclical Behavior of Interest Rates," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 21(3), pages 559-575, October.
    9. Gerard A. Pfann, 1991. "Employment and business cycle asymmetries: a data based study," Discussion Paper / Institute for Empirical Macroeconomics 39, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Arthur F. Burns & Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946. "Measuring Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn46-1.
    11. Kling, John L, 1987. "Predicting the Turning Points of Business and Economic Time Series," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 60(2), pages 201-238, April.
    12. Saul H. Hymans, 1973. "On the Use of Leading Indicators to Predict Cyclical Turning Points," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 4(2), pages 339-384.
    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. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1988. "A Probability Model of The Coincident Economic Indicators," NBER Working Papers 2772, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. 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.
    3. Victor Zarnowitz, 1986. "The Record and Improvability of Economic Forecasting," NBER Working Papers 2099, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. 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.
    5. 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.
    6. Andrew J. Filardo, 1999. "How reliable are recession prediction models?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 84(Q II), pages 35-55.
    7. Qi, Min, 2001. "Predicting US recessions with leading indicators via neural network models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 383-401.
    8. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1990. "Business Cycle Properties of Selected U.S. Economic Time Series, 1959-1988," NBER Working Papers 3376, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    9. Duo Qin, 2010. "Econometric Studies of Business Cycles in the History of Econometrics," Working Papers 669, Queen Mary University of London, School of Economics and Finance.
    10. Andrew Filardo, 2004. "The 2001 US recession: what did recession prediction models tell us?," BIS Working Papers 148, Bank for International Settlements.
    11. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1990. "Business Cycle Properties of Selected U.S. Economic Time Series, 1959-1988," Working Papers 1990-1, Princeton University. Economics Department..
    12. Enrique A. López-Enciso, 2017. "Dos tradiciones en la medición del ciclo: historia general y desarrollos en Colombia," Borradores de Economia 986, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    13. Sergey Smirnov, 2011. "Those Unpredictable Recessions," HSE Working papers WP BRP 02/EC/2011, National Research University Higher School of Economics.
    14. Fabio H. Nieto & Luis Fernando Melo, 2001. "About a Coincident Index for the State of the Economy," Borradores de Economia 1938, Banco de la Republica.
    15. Ahking, Francis W., 2014. "Measuring U.S. business cycles: A comparison of two methods and two indicators of economic activities," Journal of Economic and Social Measurement, IOS Press, issue 4, pages 199-216.
    16. Marcus Scheiblecker, 2007. "Datierung von Konjunkturwendepunkten in Österreich," WIFO Monatsberichte (monthly reports), WIFO, vol. 80(9), pages 715-730, September.
    17. Soh, Ann-Ni, 2020. "A Review on the Leading Indicator Approach towards Economic Forecasting," MPRA Paper 103854, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    18. Ghysels, E., 1992. "Charistmas, Spring and the Dawning of Economic Recovery," Cahiers de recherche 9215, Universite de Montreal, Departement de sciences economiques.
    19. DAVID E. ALLEN & MICHAEL McALEER & ROBERT J. POWELL & ABHAY K. SINGH, 2018. "Non-Parametric Multiple Change Point Analysis Of The Global Financial Crisis," Annals of Financial Economics (AFE), World Scientific Publishing Co. Pte. Ltd., vol. 13(02), pages 1-23, June.
    20. 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.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models

    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:nbr:nberwo:4014. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/nberrus.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.