1. Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?
- Author
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Guay, Alain and St-Amant, Pierre
- Abstract
In this paper, the authors examine how well the Hodrick-Prescott filter (HP) and the band-pass filter recently proposed by Baxter and King (BK) extract the business-cycle component of macroeconomic time series. The authors assess these filters using two different definitions of the business-cycle component. First, they define that component to be fluctuations lasting no fewer than six and no more than thirty-two quarters; this is the definition of business-cycle frequencies used by Baxter and King. Second, they define the business-cycle component on the basis of a decomposition of the series into permanent and transitory components. In both cases the conclusions are the same. The filters perform adequately when the spectrum of the original series has a peak at business-cycle frequencies. When the spectrum is dominated by low frequencies, the filters provide a distorted business cycle. Since most macroeconomic series have the typical Granger shape, the HP and BK filters perform poorly in terms of identifying the business cycles of these series., Dans la pr��sente ��tude, les auteurs cherchent �� ��valuer l'efficacit�� avec laquelle le filtre de Hodrick-Prescott (HP) et le filtre passe-bande r��cemment propos�� par Baxter et King (BK) permettent d'isoler la composante cyclique des s��ries macro��conomiques. Ils utilisent deux d��finitions du cycle ��conomique pour comparer la performance de ces filtres. Selon la premi��re d��finition (celle que retiennent Baxter et King), la composante cyclique correspond �� des fluctuations d'une dur��e minimale de six trimestres et maximale de trente-deux trimestres. L'autre d��finition du cycle consiste dans la d��composition de la s��rie en deux composantes, l'une permanente et l'autre transitoire. Les auteurs parviennent aux m��mes conclusions peu importe la d��finition utilis��e. Les filtres donnent des r��sultats satisfaisants lorsque le spectre de la s��rie initiale atteint un sommet au voisinage des fr��quences comprises entre six et trente-deux trimestres. Lorsque le spectre est domin�� par les basses fr��quences, le cycle ��conomique obtenu donne une image fauss��e de la r��alit��. Comme la forme spectrale de la plupart des s��ries macro��conomiques ressemble �� celle que Granger a mise en lumi��re, les filtres HP et BK r��ussissent mal �� isoler la composante cyclique de ces s��ries.
- Published
- 1996
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