A workbench for knowledge acquisition and data analysis is presented and its use for the classification of business cycles is investigated. Inductive Logic Programming (ILP) allows to model relations between intervals, e.g. time or value intervals. Moreover, the user of the workbench is...

In order to replace the univariate indicators standard in the literature (cp. [Opp96]) by a multivariate representation of business cycles, the relevant 'stylized facts' are to be identified which optimally characterize the development of business cycle phases. Based on statistical...

This paper illustrates the Support Vector Method for the classification problem with two and more classes. In particular, the multi-class classification Support Vector Method of Weston and Watkins (1998) is correctly formulated as a quadratic optimization problem. Then, the method is applied to...

The major focus of this paper is to determine whether the accuracy of German macroeconomic forecasts has improved over time. We examine 1-year-ahead forecasts of real GDP and inflation for 1967 to 2001 made by three major German forecasting groups and the OECD. We examine the accuracy of the...

Voting and non-voting shares of ten German companies are analyzed for fractional cointegration. It turns out that seven pairs of price series are fractionally cointegrated, which means that for each pair there is a linear combination of the two series that is a long-memory process. If two stocks...