IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/udb/wpaper/uwec-2002-01.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Why Are Beveridge-Nelson and Unobserved-Component Decompositions of GDP So Different?

Author

Listed:
  • James Morley

    (Washington University in St. Louis)

  • Charles Nelson

    (University of Washington)

  • Eric Zivot

    (University of Washington)

Abstract

This paper reconciles two widely-used decompositions of GDP into trend and cycle that yield starkly different results. Beveridge-Nelson (BN) implies that a stochastic trend accounts for most of the variation in output, while Unobserved-Components (UC) implies cyclical variation is dominant. Which is correct has broad implications for the relative importance of real versus nominal shocks. We show the difference arises from the restriction imposed in UC that trend and cycle innovations are uncorrelated. When this restriction is relaxed, the UC decomposition is identical to the BN decomposition. Furthermore, the zero correlation restriction can be rejected for U.S. quarterly GDP, with the estimated correlation being –0.9.

Suggested Citation

  • James Morley & Charles Nelson & Eric Zivot, 2002. "Why Are Beveridge-Nelson and Unobserved-Component Decompositions of GDP So Different?," Working Papers UWEC-2002-01, University of Washington, Department of Economics.
    • Handle: RePEc:udb:wpaper:uwec-2002-01
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.econ.washington.edu/user/cnelson/MNZ.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Blanchard, Olivier Jean & Quah, Danny, 1989. "The Dynamic Effects of Aggregate Demand and Supply Disturbances," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 79(4), pages 655-673, September.
    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. Sichel, Daniel E, 1993. "Business Cycle Asymmetry: A Deeper Look," Economic Inquiry, Western Economic Association International, vol. 31(2), pages 224-236, April.
    5. Cochrane, John H, 1988. "How Big Is the Random Walk in GNP?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 96(5), pages 893-920, October.
    6. Sichel, Daniel E, 1994. "Inventories and the Three Phases of the Business Cycle," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(3), pages 269-277, July.
    7. Beveridge, Stephen & Nelson, Charles R., 1981. "A new approach to decomposition of economic time series into permanent and transitory components with particular attention to measurement of the `business cycle'," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 7(2), pages 151-174.
    8. Harvey, A C, 1985. "Trends and Cycles in Macroeconomic Time Series," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 3(3), pages 216-227, June.
    9. Peter K. Clark, 1987. "The Cyclical Component of U. S. Economic Activity," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 102(4), pages 797-814.
    10. Neftci, Salih N, 1984. "Are Economic Time Series Asymmetric over the Business Cycle?," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 92(2), pages 307-328, April.
    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. Richard H. Clarida & Mark P. Taylor, 2003. "Nonlinear Permanent - Temporary Decompositions in Macroeconomics and Finance," Economic Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 113(486), pages 125-139, March.
    2. 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.
    3. Ai Deng & Pierre Perron, 2006. "A comparison of alternative asymptotic frameworks to analyse a structural change in a linear time trend," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 9(3), pages 423-447, November.
    4. Ángel Guillén & Gabriel Rodríguez, 2014. "Trend-cycle decomposition for Peruvian GDP: application of an alternative method," Latin American Economic Review, Springer;Centro de Investigaciòn y Docencia Económica (CIDE), vol. 23(1), pages 1-44, December.
    5. Tatsuma Wada & Pierre Perron, 2005. "Trend and Cycles: A New Approach and Explanations of Some Old Puzzles," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 252, Society for Computational Economics.
    6. Kim, Chang-Jin, 2008. "Markov-switching and the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition: Has US output persistence changed since 1984?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 146(2), pages 227-240, October.
    7. Perron, Pierre & Wada, Tatsuma, 2009. "Let's take a break: Trends and cycles in US real GDP," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 56(6), pages 749-765, September.
    8. Philip M. Bodman, 1998. "Asymmetry and Duration Dependence in Australian GDP and Unemployment," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(227), pages 399-411, December.
    9. Gonzalo, Jesus & Martinez, Oscar, 2006. "Large shocks vs. small shocks. (Or does size matter? May be so.)," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 311-347.
    10. Rodriguez Gabriel, 2007. "Application of Three Alternative Approaches to Identify Business Cycles in Peru," Working Papers 2007-007, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    11. Moolman, Elna, 2004. "A Markov switching regime model of the South African business cycle," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 631-646, July.
    12. Sinclair Tara M, 2009. "Asymmetry in the Business Cycle: Friedman's Plucking Model with Correlated Innovations," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 14(1), pages 1-31, December.
    13. 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.
    14. Shively, Philip A., 2004. "The size and dynamic effect of aggregate-demand and aggregate-supply disturbances in expansionary and contractionary regimes," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 26(1), pages 83-99, March.
    15. Filippo Altissimo & Giovanni L. Violante, 2001. "The non-linear dynamics of output and unemployment in the U.S," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 16(4), pages 461-486.
    16. Chang-Jin Kim & Jeremy M. Piger & Richard Startz, 2001. "Permanent and transitory components of business cycles: their relative importance and dynamic relationship," International Finance Discussion Papers 703, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    17. 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.
    18. Marlon Fritz & Thomas Gries & Yuanhua Feng, 2019. "Growth Trends and Systematic Patterns of Booms and Busts‐Testing 200 Years of Business Cycle Dynamics," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 81(1), pages 62-78, February.
    19. Luis Uzeda, 2022. "State Correlation and Forecasting: A Bayesian Approach Using Unobserved Components Models," Advances in Econometrics, in: Essays in Honour of Fabio Canova, volume 44, pages 25-53, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    20. Blonigen, Bruce A. & Piger, Jeremy & Sly, Nicholas, 2014. "Comovement in GDP trends and cycles among trading partners," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 239-247.

    More about this item

    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:udb:wpaper:uwec-2002-01. 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: Michael Goldblatt (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deuwaus.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.