The paper concerns the design of nonparametric low-pass filters that have the property of reproducing a polynomial of a given degree. Two approaches are considered. The first is locally weighted polynomial regression (LWPR), which leads to linear filters depending on three parameters: the...

The chapter deals with parametric models for the measurement of the business cycle in economic time series. It presents univariate methods based on parametric trend{cycle decom- positions and multivariate models featuring a Phillips type relationship between the output gap and inflation and the...

This paper examines the comovements of construction in Italy's regions from 1861 to 1913. The dynamic correlations of the series' deviation cycles decline in the case of buildings, remain very low in that of railways, and tend to decline in that of other infrastructure; the total-construction...

The paper focuses on the comparison of the direct and iterated AR predictors when Xt is a difference stationary process. In particular, it provides some useful results for comparing the efficiency of the two predictors and for extracting the trend from macroeconomic time series using the two...

The paper estimates a large-scale mixed-frequency dynamic factor model for the euro area, using monthly series along with Gross Domestic Product (GDP) and its main components, obtained from the quarterly national accounts. The latter define broad measures of real economic activity (such as GDP...

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...

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 introduces the multistep Beveridge-Nelson decomposition, which arises when the forecast function is obtained by...

A univariate first order stochastic cycle can be represented as an element of a bivariate first order vector autoregressive process, or VAR(1), where the transition matrix is associated with a Givens rotation. From the geometrical viewpoint, the kernel of the cyclical dynamics is described by a...

The series on average hours worked in the manufacturing sector is a key leading indicator of the U.S. business cycle. The paper deals with robust estimation of the cyclical component for the seasonally adjusted time series. This is achieved by an unobserved components model featuring an...

Seasonality is one of the most important features of economic time series. The possibility to abstract from seasonality for the assessment of economic conditions is a widely debated issue. In this paper we propose a strategy for assessing the role of seasonal adjustment on business cycle...