We introduce a high-dimensional structural time series model, where co-movement between the components is due to common factors. A two-step estimation strategy is presented, which is based on principal components in differences in a first step and state space methods in a second step. The...

This paper analyses the Nairu in the Euro Area and the influence that hysteresis had on its development. Using the Kalman-filter technique we find that the Nairu has varied considerably since the early seventies. The Kalman-filter technique is applied here using explicit exogenous variables. In...

We develop a dynamic factor model with time-varying factor loadings and stochastic volatility in both the latent factors and idiosyncratic components. We employ this new measurement tool to study the evolution of international business cycles in the post-Bretton Woods period, using a panel of...

The wavelet transform is used to identify a biannual and an annual seasonality in the Phelix Day Peak and to separate the long-term trend from its short-term motion. The short-term/long-term model for commodity prices of Schwartz & Smith (2000) is applied but generalised to account for weekly...

We model panel data of crime careers of juveniles from a Dutch Judicial Juvenile Institution. The data are decomposed into a systematic and an individual-specific component, of which the systematic component reflects the general time-varying conditions including the criminological climate....

In this paper we investigate whether the dynamic properties of the U.S. business cycle have changed in the last fifty years. For this purpose we develop a flexible business cycle indicator that is constructed from a moderate set of macroeconomic time series. The coincident economic indicator is...

This article presents a robust augmented Kalman filter that extends the data-cleaning filter (Masreliez and Martin, 1977) to the general state space model featuring nonstationary and regression effects. The robust filter shrinks the observations towards their one-step-ahead prediction based on...

Convergence in gross domestic product series of five European countriesis empirically identified using multivariate time series models that arebased on unobserved components with dynamic converging properties.We define convergence in terms of a decrease in dispersion over timeand model this...

This paper investigates business cycle relations among different economies in theEuro area. Cyclical dynamics are explicitly modelled as part of a time series model. Weintroduce mechanisms that allow for increasing or diminishing phase shifts and for time-varyingassociation patterns in different...