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Reconsideration of the Markov Chain Evidence on Unemployment Rate Asymmetry

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  • Rothman Philip A

    (East Carolina University)

Abstract

Using 15 years worth of additional data, a study is carried out to explore the extent to which the results in Rothman (1991) still hold. The analysis shows that such a comparison is very much dependent on whether: (i) 1-quarter differences or 4-quarter differences are used to construct the underlying state-indicator sequence; and (ii) the asymptotic distribution of the underlying test statistics is used for inference. The considerably higher staying probabilities obtained with the smoother 4-quarter differences argue in favor of their use in addressing the possible asymmetry of the business cycle, as opposed to higher-frequency fluctuations. Also, Monte Carlo simulations suggest the asymptotic p-values for the Markov chain tests are biased.

Suggested Citation

  • Rothman Philip A, 2008. "Reconsideration of the Markov Chain Evidence on Unemployment Rate Asymmetry," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 12(3), pages 1-18, September.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:sndecm:v:12:y:2008:i:3:n:6
    DOI: 10.2202/1558-3708.1521
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    Cited by:

    1. Oleg Korenok & Bruce Mizrach, 2004. "The Microeconomics of Macroeconomic Asymmetries: Sectoral Driving Forces and Firm Level Characteristics," Computing in Economics and Finance 2004 266, Society for Computational Economics.
    2. Paul Zimmerman & John Yun & Christopher Taylor, 2013. "Edgeworth Price Cycles in Gasoline: Evidence from the United States," Review of Industrial Organization, Springer;The Industrial Organization Society, vol. 42(3), pages 297-320, May.
    3. Regis Barnichon & Christopher J. Nekarda, 2012. "The Ins and Outs of Forecasting Unemployment: Using Labor Force Flows to Forecast the Labor Market," Brookings Papers on Economic Activity, Economic Studies Program, The Brookings Institution, vol. 43(2 (Fall)), pages 83-131.
    4. Miguel Artiach, 2011. "Second-order moments of frequency asymmetric cycles," Working Papers. Serie AD 2011-27, Instituto Valenciano de Investigaciones Económicas, S.A. (Ivie).
    5. Luke Hartigan, 2016. "Testing for Symmetry in Weakly Dependent Time Series," Discussion Papers 2016-18, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    6. Yoon, Gawon, 2009. "It's all the miners' fault: On the nonlinearity in U.S. unemployment rates," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 26(6), pages 1449-1454, November.
    7. Francisco Lasso-Valderrama & Héctor M. Zárate-Solano, 2019. "Forecasting the Colombian Unemployment Rate Using Labour Force Flows," Borradores de Economia 1073, Banco de la Republica de Colombia.
    8. Petre Caraiani & Emmanuel Haven, 2013. "The Role of Recurrence Plots in Characterizing the Output-Unemployment Relationship: An Analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 8(2), pages 1-11, February.

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