The paper discusses a simple univariate nonlinear parametric time-series model for unemployment rates, focusing on the asymmetry observed in many OECD unemployment rate series. The model is based on a standard logistic smooth transition autoregressive (LSTAR) model for the first difference of...

This paper considers nine long Swedish macroeconomic time series whose business cycle properties were discussed by Englund, Persson, and Svensson (1992) using frequency domain techniques. It is found by testing that all but two of the logarithmed and difference series are non-linear. The...

When testing the null hypothesis of linearity of a univariate time series against smooth transition autoregression (STAR), standard asymptotic distribution results do not apply since nuisance parameters in the model are unidentified under the null hypothesis. The prevailing test of Luukkonen,...