IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/87392.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Structural Breaks exist in Okun’s Law? Evidence from the Lost Decade in Japan

Author

Listed:
  • Iiboshi, Hirokuni
  • Wakita, Shigeru

Abstract

This paper presents an analysis as to whether or not there has been a structural break of Okun’s Law, and if so, how many, when and what kind of break, using Bayesian methods via MCMC (Markov Chain Monte Carlo) simulation for the Japanese data from 1961Q1 to 2001Q1. In addition, it identifies structural breaks both in trends (normal level) and cyclical components (normal level), which are ecomposed from output and unemployment rate by new proposed methods as well as widespread methods: H-P filter and Band Pass filter, in contrast to the previous studies of several countries.

Suggested Citation

  • Iiboshi, Hirokuni & Wakita, Shigeru, 2004. "Do Structural Breaks exist in Okun’s Law? Evidence from the Lost Decade in Japan," MPRA Paper 87392, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:87392
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/87392/1/MPRA_paper_87392.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    2. Clark, Peter K., 1989. "Trend reversion in real output and unemployment," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 15-32, January.
    3. Olivier J. Blanchard & Lawrence H. Summers, 1986. "Hysteresis and the European Unemployment Problem," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1986, Volume 1, pages 15-90, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    4. Jushan Bai & Pierre Perron, 1998. "Estimating and Testing Linear Models with Multiple Structural Changes," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 66(1), pages 47-78, January.
    5. Andrews, Donald W K & Ploberger, Werner, 1994. "Optimal Tests When a Nuisance Parameter Is Present Only under the Alternative," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 62(6), pages 1383-1414, November.
    6. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November.
    7. 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.
    8. Stephen J. Leybourne And Paul Newbold, 2000. "Behaviour of the standard and symmetric Dickey-Fuller-type tests when there is a break under the null hypothesis," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 3(1), pages 1-15.
    9. Chib, Siddhartha, 1998. "Estimation and comparison of multiple change-point models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 86(2), pages 221-241, June.
    10. Perron, P, 1993. "Erratum [The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock and the Unit Root Hypothesis]," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 61(1), pages 248-249, January.
    11. Nelson, Charles R. & Plosser, Charles I., 1982. "Trends and random walks in macroeconmic time series : Some evidence and implications," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 10(2), pages 139-162.
    12. Perron, Pierre, 1990. "Testing for a Unit Root in a Time Series with a Changing Mean," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(2), pages 153-162, April.
    13. Robert J. Gordon, 1984. "Unemployment and Potential Output in the 1980s," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 15(2), pages 537-568.
    14. Grant, Alan P., 2002. "Time-varying estimates of the natural rate of unemployment: a revisitation of Okun's law," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 42(1), pages 95-113.
    15. Perron, Pierre, 1989. "The Great Crash, the Oil Price Shock, and the Unit Root Hypothesis," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(6), pages 1361-1401, November.
    16. Leybourne, Stephen J. & C. Mills, Terence & Newbold, Paul, 1998. "Spurious rejections by Dickey-Fuller tests in the presence of a break under the null," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 87(1), pages 191-203, August.
    17. Perron, Pierre & Vogelsang, Timothy J, 1992. "Testing for a Unit Root in a Time Series with a Changing Mean: Corrections and Extensions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(4), pages 467-470, October.
    18. Weber, Christian E, 1995. "Cyclical Output, Cyclical Unemployment, and Okun's Coefficient: A New Approach," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 10(4), pages 433-445, Oct.-Dec..
    19. Attfield, Clifford L. F. & Silverstone, Brian, 1998. "Okun's Law, Cointegration and Gap Variables," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 20(3), pages 625-637, July.
    20. Evans, George W, 1989. "Output and Unemployment Dynamics in the United States: 1950-1985," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 4(3), pages 213-237, July-Sept.
    21. 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)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Shigeru Wakita, 2006. "The Lost Decade in the Japanese Labor Market : Labor's share and Okun's Law," Public Policy Review, Policy Research Institute, Ministry of Finance Japan, vol. 2(1), pages 77-96, January.

    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. Tolga Omay & Muhammad Shahbaz & Chris Stewart, 2021. "Is there really hysteresis in the OECD unemployment rates? New evidence using a Fourier panel unit root test," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 48(4), pages 875-901, November.
    2. Omay, Tolga & Shahbaz, Muhammad & Stewart, Chris, 2021. "Is There Really Hysteresis in OECD Countries’ Unemployment Rates? New Evidence Using a Fourier Panel Unit Root Test," MPRA Paper 107691, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 10 May 2021.
    3. Banerjee, Anindya & Urga, Giovanni, 2005. "Modelling structural breaks, long memory and stock market volatility: an overview," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 129(1-2), pages 1-34.
    4. Kim, Dukpa & Perron, Pierre, 2009. "Unit root tests allowing for a break in the trend function at an unknown time under both the null and alternative hypotheses," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 148(1), pages 1-13, January.
    5. Markku Lanne & Helmut Lütkepohl & Pentti Saikkonen, 2003. "Test Procedures for Unit Roots in Time Series with Level Shifts at Unknown Time," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 65(1), pages 91-115, February.
    6. Aparicio, Felipe M. & Escribano, Álvaro & García, Ana, 2003. "Range unit root tests," DES - Working Papers. Statistics and Econometrics. WS ws031126, Universidad Carlos III de Madrid. Departamento de Estadística.
    7. Lee, Jim, 2000. "The Robustness of Okun's Law: Evidence from OECD Countries," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 22(2), pages 331-356, April.
    8. Steven Cook, 2005. "Rank-based unit root testing in the presence of structural change under the null: simulation results and an application to US inflation," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(6), pages 607-617.
    9. Martin B. Schmidt, 2024. "On the impact of institutional change: Rights reassignment and career length," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 62(4), pages 1702-1721, October.
    10. Özge Çamalan & Esra Hasdemir & Tolga Omay & Mustafa Can Küçüker, 2025. "Comparison of the Performance of Structural Break Tests in Stationary and Nonstationary Series: A New Bootstrap Algorithm," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 65(6), pages 3111-3159, June.
    11. Foster, Neil & Stehrer, Robert, 2007. "Modeling transformation in CEECs using smooth transitions," Journal of Comparative Economics, Elsevier, vol. 35(1), pages 57-86, March.
    12. Iiboshi, Hirokuni & Watanabe, Toshiaki, 2005. "Has the Business Cycle Changed in Japan? A Bayesian Analysis Based on a Markov-Switching Model with Multiple Change-Points," MPRA Paper 93865, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Moosa, Imad A., 1999. "Cyclical output, cyclical unemployment, and Okun's coefficient A structural time series approach," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 8(3), pages 293-304, September.
    14. Perron, Pierre & Wada, Tatsuma, 2016. "Measuring business cycles with structural breaks and outliers: Applications to international data," Research in Economics, Elsevier, vol. 70(2), pages 281-303.
    15. Pierre Perron & Yohei Yamamoto, 2022. "Structural change tests under heteroskedasticity: Joint estimation versus two‐steps methods," Journal of Time Series Analysis, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 43(3), pages 389-411, May.
    16. Fiteni, Inmaculada, 2004. "[tau]-estimators of regression models with structural change of unknown location," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 119(1), pages 19-44, March.
    17. Darne, Olivier & Diebolt, Claude, 2004. "Unit roots and infrequent large shocks: new international evidence on output," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 51(7), pages 1449-1465, October.
    18. René Lalonde & Jennifer Page & Pierre St-Amant, 1998. "Une nouvelle méthode d'estimation de l'écart de production et son application aux États-Unis, au Canada et à l'Allemagne," Staff Working Papers 98-21, Bank of Canada.
    19. Andrew T. Levin & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Is inflation persistence intrinsic in industrial economies?," Working Papers 2002-023, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis.
    20. David Shepherd & Robert Dixon, 2008. "The Cyclical Dynamics and Volatility of Australian Output and Employment," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 84(264), pages 34-49, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Structural Change Test with Unknown Timing; MCMC; Kalman Filter; Hodrick-Prescott Filter; Band Pass Filter; Bayesian inference;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • 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:pra:mprapa:87392. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.