Short Term And Long Term Trends Seasonal Adjustment And The Business Cycle

Analyzes in detail some of the major limitations of the standard procedure to estimate business cycles with the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter.

This book explores widely used seasonal adjustment methods and recent developments in real time trend-cycle estimation. It discusses in detail the properties and limitations of X12ARIMA, TRAMO-SEATS and STAMP - the main seasonal adjustment methods used by statistical agencies. Several real-world cases illustrate each method and real data examples can be followed throughout the text. The trend-cycle estimation is presented using nonparametric techniques based on moving averages, linear filters and reproducing kernel Hilbert spaces, taking recent advances into account. The book provides a systematical treatment of results that to date have been scattered throughout the literature. Seasonal adjustment and real time trend-cycle prediction play an essential part at all levels of activity in modern economies. They are used by governments to counteract cyclical recessions, by central banks to control inflation, by decision makers for better modeling and planning and by hospitals, manufacturers, builders, transportation, and consumers in general to decide on appropriate action. This book appeals to practitioners in government institutions, finance and business, macroeconomists, and other professionals who use economic data as well as academic researchers in time series analysis, seasonal adjustment methods, filtering and signal extraction. It is also useful for graduate and final-year undergraduate courses in econometrics and time series with a good understanding of linear regression and matrix algebra, as well as ARIMA modelling.

In Time Series Analysis and Adjustment the authors explain how the last four decades have brought dramatic changes in the way researchers analyze economic and financial data on behalf of economic and financial institutions and provide statistics to whomsoever requires them. Such analysis has long involved what is known as econometrics, but time series analysis is a different approach driven more by data than economic theory and focused on modelling. An understanding of time series and the application and understanding of related time series adjustment procedures is essential in areas such as risk management, business cycle analysis, and forecasting. Dealing with economic data involves grappling with things like varying numbers of working and trading days in different months and movable national holidays. Special attention has to be given to such things. However, the main problem in time series analysis is randomness. In real-life, data patterns are usually unclear, and the challenge is to uncover hidden patterns in the data and then to generate accurate forecasts. The case studies in this book demonstrate that time series adjustment methods can be efficaciously applied and utilized, for both analysis and forecasting, but they must be used in the context of reasoned statistical and economic judgment. The authors believe this is the first published study to really deal with this issue of context.

Economic Time Series: Modeling and Seasonality is a focused resource on analysis of economic time series as pertains to modeling and seasonality, presenting cutting-edge research that would otherwise be scattered throughout diverse peer-reviewed journals. This compilation of 21 chapters showcases the cross-fertilization between the fields of time series modeling and seasonal adjustment, as is reflected both in the contents of the chapters and in their authorship, with contributors coming from academia and government statistical agencies. For easier perusal and absorption, the contents have been grouped into seven topical sections: Section I deals with periodic modeling of time series, introducing, applying, and comparing various seasonally periodic models Section II examines the estimation of time series components when models for series are misspecified in some sense, and the broader implications this has for seasonal adjustment and business cycle estimation Section III examines the quantification of error in X-11 seasonal adjustments, with comparisons to error in model-based seasonal adjustments Section IV discusses some practical problems that arise in seasonal adjustment: developing asymmetric trend-cycle filters, dealing with both temporal and contemporaneous benchmark constraints, detecting trading-day effects in monthly and quarterly time series, and using diagnostics in conjunction with model-based seasonal adjustment Section V explores outlier detection and the modeling of time series containing extreme values, developing new procedures and extending previous work Section VI examines some alternative models and inference procedures for analysis of seasonal economic time series Section VII deals with aspects of modeling, estimation, and forecasting for nonseasonal economic time series By presenting new methodological developments as well as pertinent empirical analyses and reviews of established methods, the book provides much that is stimulating and practically useful for the serious researcher and analyst of economic time series.

Vols. for Nov. 1968- include an advance release of the expanded summary table (table 1).

This Volume contains the Keynote, Invited and Full Contributed papers presented at COMPSTAT 2000. A companion volume (Jansen & Bethlehem, 2000) contains papers describing the Short Communications and Posters. COMPST AT is a one week conference held every two years under the auspices of the International Association of Statistical Computing, a section of the International Statistical Institute. COMPST AT 2000 is jointly organised by the Department of Methodology and Statistics of the Faculty of Social Sciences of Utrecht University, and Statistics Netherlands. It is taking place from 21-25 August 2000 at Utrecht University. Previous COMPSTATs (from 1974-1998) were in Vienna, Berlin, Leiden, Edinburgh, Toulouse, Prague, Rome, Copenhagen, Dubrovnik, Neuchatel, Vienna, Barcelona and Bristol. The conference is the main European forum for developments at the interface between statistics and computing. This was encapsulated as follows on the COMPST A T 2000 homepage http://neon. vb.cbs.nlIrsml compstat. Statistical computing provides the link between statistical theory and applied statistics. As at previous COMPSTATs, the scientific programme will range over all aspects of this link, from the development and implementation of new statistical ideas through to user experiences and software evaluation. The programme should appeal to anyone working in statistics and using computers, whether in universities, industrial companies, research institutes or as software developers. At COMPST AT 2000 there is a special interest in the interplay with official statistics. This is evident from papers in the area of computerised data collection, survey methodology, treatment of missing data, and the like.

Vols. for Nov. 1968- include an advance release of the expanded summary table (table 1).