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Dating US business cycles with macro factors

Author

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  • Fossati Sebastian

    (Department of Economics, University of Alberta, Edmonton, AB T6G 2H4, Canada)

Abstract

Latent factors estimated from panels of macroeconomic indicators are used to generate recession probabilities for the US economy. The focus is on current (rather than future) business conditions. Two macro factors are considered: (1) a dynamic factor estimated by maximum likelihood from a set of 4 monthly series; (2) the first of eight static factors estimated by principal components using a panel of 102 monthly series. Recession probabilities generated using standard probit, autoregressive probit, and Markov-switching models exhibit very different properties. Overall, a simple Markov-switching model based on the big data macro factor generates the sequence of out-of-sample class predictions that better approximates NBER recession months. Nevertheless, it is shown that the selection of the best performing model depends on the forecaster’s relative tolerance for false positives and false negatives.

Suggested Citation

  • Fossati Sebastian, 2016. "Dating US business cycles with macro factors," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 20(5), pages 529-547, December.
    • Handle: RePEc:bpj:sndecm:v:20:y:2016:i:5:p:529-547:n:4
    DOI: 10.1515/snde-2015-0037
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Michael T. Owyang & Jeremy Piger & Howard J. Wall, 2015. "Forecasting National Recessions Using State‐Level Data," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 47(5), pages 847-866, August.
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    Cited by:

    1. repec:wsr:ecbook:2011:i:iii-007 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Barış Soybilgen, 2020. "Identifying US business cycle regimes using dynamic factors and neural network models," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 39(5), pages 827-840, August.
    3. Marcelle Chauvet & Rafael R. S. Guimaraes, 2021. "Transfer Learning for Business Cycle Identification," Working Papers Series 545, Central Bank of Brazil, Research Department.
    4. Yongchen Zhao, 2020. "Predicting U.S. Business Cycle Turning Points Using Real-Time Diffusion Indexes Based on a Large Data Set," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 16(2), pages 77-97, November.
    5. Fossati, Sebastian, 2017. "Testing for State-Dependent Predictive Ability," Working Papers 2017-9, University of Alberta, Department of Economics.
    6. Alexander James & Yaser S. Abu-Mostafa & Xiao Qiao, 2019. "Nowcasting Recessions using the SVM Machine Learning Algorithm," Papers 1903.03202, arXiv.org, revised Jun 2019.
    7. Rafael R. S. Guimaraes, 2022. "Deep Learning Macroeconomics," Papers 2201.13380, arXiv.org.
    8. Giusto, Andrea & Piger, Jeremy, 2017. "Identifying business cycle turning points in real time with vector quantization," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 174-184.
    9. Soybilgen, Baris, 2018. "Identifying US business cycle regimes using dynamic factors and neural network models," MPRA Paper 94715, University Library of Munich, Germany.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycle; factors; forecasting; Markov-switching model; probit model;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C01 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - General - - - Econometrics
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes

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