We estimate output growth rate spectra for 58 countries. The spectra exhibit diverse shapes. To study the sources of this diversity, we estimate the short-run, business cycle, and long-run frequency components of the sampled series. For most OECD countries the bulk of the spectral mass is in the...

The U.S. prewar output series exhibit smaller shock-persistence than postwar-series. Some studies suggest this may be due to linear interpolation used to generate missing prewar data. Monte Carlo simulations that support this view generate large standard-errors, making such inference imprecise....