The formulation of unobserved components models raises some relevant interpretative issues, owing to the existence of alternative observationally equivalent specifi cations, differing for the timing of the disturbances and their covariance matrix. We illustrate them with reference to unobserved...

Time series observed at higher frequencies than monthly frequency display complex seasonal patterns that result from the combination of multiple seasonal patterns (with annual, monthly, weekly and daily periodicities) and varying periods, due to the irregularity of the calendar. The paper deals...

Structural change affects the estimation of economic signals, like the underlying growth rate or the seasonally adjusted series. An important issue, which has attracted a great deal of attention also in the seasonal adjustment literature, is its detection by an expert procedure. The...

Extracting and forecasting the volatility of financial markets is an important empirical problem. Time series of realized volatility or other volatility proxies, such as squared returns, display long range dependence. Exponential smoothing (ES) is a very popular and successful forecasting and...

In this chapter we consider a class of parametric spectrum estimators based on a generalized linear model for exponential random variables with power link. The power transformation of the spectrum of a stationary process can be expanded in a Fourier series, with the coefficients representing...

The paper deals with the construction of a synthetic indicator of economic growth, obtained by projecting a quarterly measure of aggregate economic activity, namely gross domestic product (GDP), into the space spanned by a finite number of smooth principal components, representative of the...

The Beveridge-Nelson decomposition defines the trend component in terms of the eventual forecast function, as the value the series would take if it were on its long-run path. The paper in-troduces the multistep Beveridge-Nelson decomposition, which arises when the forecast function is obtained...

We apply a recently proposed Bayesian model selection technique, known as stochastic model specification search, for characterising the nature of the trend in macroeconomic time series. We illustrate that the methodology can be quite successfully applied to discriminate between stochastic and...

Many empirical studies find a negative correlation between the returns on the nominal spot exchange rate and the lagged forward discount. This forward discount anomaly implies that the current forward rate is a biased predictor of the future spot rate. A large number of studies in the existing...

Locating the running maxima and minima of a time series, and measuring the current deviation from them, generates processes that are analytically relevant for the analysis of the business cycle and for characterizing bull and bear phases in financial markets. The measurement of the time distance...