The question arises whether there can be an enrichment of business cycle research when business cycle indicators will be used in an increasing dimension. This article, dedicated to Professor Adolf Wagner, tries to differentiate three fields of research: Hypothesis formation in theory,...

A reliable leading indicator should possess the following properties: (1) The movements in the indicator series should resemble those in the business cycle reference series. (2) The relation between the reference series and the indicator should be statistically significant and stable over time....

In this paper we perform a comparative study of the forecasting properties of the about 30 alternative leading indicators for Germany using the growth rates of German real GDP. In addition to them, we have constructed a diffusion index based on the principal component analysis and including 145...

In this paper we assess the information content of seven widely cited early indicators for the euro area with respect to forecasting area-wide industrial production. To this end, we use various tests that are designed to compare competing forecast models. In addition to the standard...

Using a binary reference series based on the dating procedure of Artis, Kontolemis and Osborn (1997) different procedures for predicting turning points of the German business cycles were tested. Specifically, a probit model as proposed by Estrella and Mishkin (1997) as well as Markov-switching...

In this paper, the authors compare a trigonometrically designed low-pass filter with the Hodrick-Prescott filter and a conventional moving average. The authors examine by means of transfer functions, some practical applications and in comprehensive stochastic simulations how well the three...

This paper compares the efficiency of two methods explaining the cyclical movement of a time series at its current end. It refers to a newly developed low-pass filter and the seasonal adjustment method, represented by ASA-II. The empirical analysis starts with a visual comparison of the results...