IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/ecolet/v242y2024ics0165176524003628.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Works like a Sahm: Recession indicators and the Sahm rule

Author

Listed:
  • Ash, Thomas
  • Nickelsburg, Jerry

Abstract

We analyse the use of the Sahm rule as a recession predictor/indicator. We use two approaches: (1) an empirical analysis of historic recession episodes; and (2) stochastic simulations in a VAR framework. We find that in both the Sahm rule is a poor predictor of future recessions. The VAR exercise suggests this is because of its focus on the unemployment rate, which misses non-labour market shocks. This analysis suggests the Sahm rule should be restricted to the purpose that its creator intended.

Suggested Citation

  • Ash, Thomas & Nickelsburg, Jerry, 2024. "Works like a Sahm: Recession indicators and the Sahm rule," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 242(C).
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:242:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524003628
    DOI: 10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111878
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0165176524003628
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.econlet.2024.111878?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Silvia Miranda-Agrippino & Giovanni Ricco, 2021. "The Transmission of Monetary Policy Shocks," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 13(3), pages 74-107, July.
    2. Christoph Görtz & John D. Tsoukalas & Francesco Zanetti, 2022. "News Shocks under Financial Frictions," American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, American Economic Association, vol. 14(4), pages 210-243, October.
    3. James Mitchell & Gary Koop & Stuart McIntyre & Aubrey Poon, 2020. "Reconciled Estimates of Monthly GDP in the US," Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE) Discussion Papers ESCoE DP-2020-16, Economic Statistics Centre of Excellence (ESCoE).
    4. Dimitrios Bisias & Mark Flood & Andrew W. Lo & Stavros Valavanis, 2012. "A Survey of Systemic Risk Analytics," Annual Review of Financial Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 4(1), pages 255-296, October.
    5. Kathleen Weiss Hanley & Gerard Hoberg, 2019. "Dynamic Interpretation of Emerging Risks in the Financial Sector," The Review of Financial Studies, Society for Financial Studies, vol. 32(12), pages 4543-4603.
    6. David Kelley, 2019. "Which Leading Indicators Have Done Better at Signaling Past Recessions?," Chicago Fed Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia & Marija Vukotic, 2022. "Patent-Based News Shocks," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 104(1), pages 51-66, March.
    2. Leonardo Melosi & Francesco Zanetti, 2022. "The Signaling Effects of Fiscal Announcements," Working Paper Series WP 2022-38, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.
    3. Federico Di Pace & Christoph Görtz, 2021. "Monetary Policy, Sectoral Comovement and the Credit Channel," CESifo Working Paper Series 9142, CESifo.
    4. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia, 2022. "Forecast Revisions as Instruments for News Shocks," International Finance Discussion Papers 1341, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    5. Di Pace, Federico & Görtz, Christoph, 2021. "Sectoral comovement, monetary policy and the credit channel," Bank of England working papers 925, Bank of England.
    6. Chang, Carolyn W. & Li, Xiaodan & Lin, Edward M.H. & Yu, Min-Teh, 2018. "Systemic risk, interconnectedness, and non-core activities in Taiwan insurance industry," International Review of Economics & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 273-284.
    7. repec:ofr:report:12-1 is not listed on IDEAS
    8. Michal Skorepa & Jakub Seidler, 2015. "Capital buffers based on banks’ domestic systemic importance: selected issues," Journal of Financial Economic Policy, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 7(3), pages 207-220, August.
    9. Miranda-Agrippino, Silvia & Ricco, Giovanni, 2018. "Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1159, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    10. van de Leur, Michiel C.W. & Lucas, André & Seeger, Norman J., 2017. "Network, market, and book-based systemic risk rankings," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 78(C), pages 84-90.
    11. Cosmas Dery & Apostolos Serletis, 2021. "Disentangling the Effects of Uncertainty, Monetary Policy and Leverage Shocks on the Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 83(5), pages 1029-1065, October.
    12. Sebastian K. Rüth & Wouter Van der Veken, 2023. "Monetary policy and exchange rate anomalies in set‐identified SVARs: Revisited," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(7), pages 1085-1092, November.
    13. Cezar, Rafael & Monnet, Eric, 2023. "Capital controls and foreign reserves against external shocks: Combined or alone?," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 137(C).
    14. Cristiano Cantore & Filippo Ferroni & Miguel León-Ledesma, 2021. "The Missing Link: Monetary Policy and The Labor Share," Journal of the European Economic Association, European Economic Association, vol. 19(3), pages 1592-1620.
    15. Dror Y. Kenett & Xuqing Huang & Irena Vodenska & Shlomo Havlin & H. Eugene Stanley, 2015. "Partial correlation analysis: applications for financial markets," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 15(4), pages 569-578, April.
    16. Bekaert, Geert & Hoerova, Marie & Xu, Nancy, 2023. "Risk, Monetary Policy and Asset Prices in a Global World," CEPR Discussion Papers 18229, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    17. Xisong Jin, 2018. "How much does book value data tell us about systemic risk and its interactions with the macroeconomy? A Luxembourg empirical evaluation," BCL working papers 118, Central Bank of Luxembourg.
    18. Pagliari, Maria Sole, 2024. "Does one (unconventional) size fit all? Effects of the ECB’s unconventional monetary policies on the euro area economies," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 168(C).
    19. Hartwig, Benny & Meinerding, Christoph & Schüler, Yves S., 2021. "Identifying indicators of systemic risk," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 132(C).
    20. Bu, Chunya & Rogers, John & Wu, Wenbin, 2021. "A unified measure of Fed monetary policy shocks," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 331-349.
    21. Munday, Tim & Brookes, James, 2021. "Mark my words: the transmission of central bank communication to the general public via the print media," Bank of England working papers 944, Bank of England.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Recessions; Sahm rule; US economy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:ecolet:v:242:y:2024:i:c:s0165176524003628. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ecolet .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.