A growing body of literature argues that the financial cycle is considerably longer in duration and larger in amplitude than the business cycle and that its distinguishing features became more pronounced over time. This paper proposes an empirical approach suitable to test these hypotheses. We...

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...

Few authors have studied, either asymptotically or in finite samples, the size and power of seasonal unit root tests when the data generating process [DGP] is a non-stationary alternative aside from the seasonal random walk. In this respect, Ghysels, lee and Noh (1994) conducted a simulation...

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...

Recent releases of X-13ARIMA-SEATS and JDemetra+ enable their users to choose between the non-parametric X-11 and the parametric ARIMA model-based approach to seasonal adjustment for any given time series without the necessity of switching between different software packages. To ease the...

A novel estimation method for two classes of semiparametric scalar diffusion models is proposed: In the first class, the diffusion term is parameterised and the drift is left unspecified, while in the second class only the drift term is specified. Under the assumption of stationarity, the...

In this paper we analyse the impact of non-stationary volatility on the recently developed unit root tests which allow for a possible break in trend occurring at an unknown point in the sample, considered in Harris, Harvey, Leybourne and Taylor (2008) [HHLT]. HHLT's analysis hinges on a new...

Forecasting using factor models based on large data sets have received ample attention due to the models' ability to increase forecast accuracy with respect to a range of key macroeconomic variables in the US and the UK. However, forecasts based on such factor models do not uniformly outperform...

Yule (1926) introduced the concept of spurious or nonsense correlation, and showed by simulation that for some nonstationary processes, that the empirical correlations seem not to converge in probability even if the processes were indpendent. This was later discussed by Granger and Newbold...