IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/arx/papers/0912.0857.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

What Causes Business Cycles? Analysis of the Japanese Industrial Production Data

Author

Listed:
  • Hiroshi Iyetomi
  • Yasuhiro Nakayama
  • Hiroshi Yoshikawa
  • Hideaki Aoyama
  • Yoshi Fujiwara
  • Yuichi Ikeda
  • Wataru Souma

Abstract

We explore what causes business cycles by analyzing the Japanese industrial production data. The methods are spectral analysis and factor analysis. Using the random matrix theory, we show that two largest eigenvalues are significant. Taking advantage of the information revealed by disaggregated data, we identify the first dominant factor as the aggregate demand, and the second factor as inventory adjustment. They cannot be reasonably interpreted as technological shocks. We also demonstrate that in terms of two dominant factors, shipments lead production by four months. Furthermore, out-of-sample test demonstrates that the model holds up even under the 2008-09 recession. Because a fall of output during 2008-09 was caused by an exogenous drop in exports, it provides another justification for identifying the first dominant factor as the aggregate demand. All the findings suggest that the major cause of business cycles is real demand shocks.

Suggested Citation

  • Hiroshi Iyetomi & Yasuhiro Nakayama & Hiroshi Yoshikawa & Hideaki Aoyama & Yoshi Fujiwara & Yuichi Ikeda & Wataru Souma, 2009. "What Causes Business Cycles? Analysis of the Japanese Industrial Production Data," Papers 0912.0857, arXiv.org, revised Nov 2010.
    • Handle: RePEc:arx:papers:0912.0857
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://arxiv.org/pdf/0912.0857
    File Function: Latest version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2002. "Determining the Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, January.
    2. Alan S. Blinder & Louis J. Maccini, 1991. "Taking Stock: A Critical Assessment of Recent Research on Inventories," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 5(1), pages 73-96, Winter.
    3. Mankiw, N Gregory, 1989. "Real Business Cycles: A New Keynesian Perspective," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 3(3), pages 79-90, Summer.
    4. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1990. "A Nonparametric Investigation of Duration Dependence in the American Business Cycle," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 98(3), pages 596-616, June.
    5. James Tobin, 1993. "Price Flexibility and Output Stability: An Old Keynesian View," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 7(1), pages 45-65, Winter.
    6. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    7. Wesley Clair Mitchell, 1951. "What Happens during Business Cycles: A Progress Report," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number mitc51-1.
    8. Robert E. Lucas Jr., 2003. "Macroeconomic Priorities," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 93(1), pages 1-14, March.
    9. Thomas J. Sargent & Christopher A. Sims, 1977. "Business cycle modeling without pretending to have too much a priori economic theory," Working Papers 55, Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis.
    10. Stock J.H. & Watson M.W., 2002. "Forecasting Using Principal Components From a Large Number of Predictors," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 97, pages 1167-1179, December.
    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. Iyetomi, Hiroshi & Nakayama, Yasuhiro & Yoshikawa, Hiroshi & Aoyama, Hideaki & Fujiwara, Yoshi & Ikeda, Yuichi & Souma, Wataru, 2011. "What causes business cycles? Analysis of the Japanese industrial production data," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(3), pages 246-272, September.
    2. Matteo Barigozzi & Antonio M. Conti & Matteo Luciani, 2014. "Do Euro Area Countries Respond Asymmetrically to the Common Monetary Policy?," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 76(5), pages 693-714, October.
    3. Ma, Tao & Zhou, Zhou & Antoniou, Constantinos, 2018. "Dynamic factor model for network traffic state forecast," Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Elsevier, vol. 118(C), pages 281-317.
    4. Jonas Krampe & Luca Margaritella, 2021. "Factor Models with Sparse VAR Idiosyncratic Components," Papers 2112.07149, arXiv.org, revised May 2022.
    5. Nii Ayi Armah & Norman Swanson, 2010. "Seeing Inside the Black Box: Using Diffusion Index Methodology to Construct Factor Proxies in Large Scale Macroeconomic Time Series Environments," Econometric Reviews, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 29(5-6), pages 476-510.
    6. Li, Kunpeng & Li, Qi & Lu, Lina, 2018. "Quasi maximum likelihood analysis of high dimensional constrained factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(2), pages 574-612.
    7. Alessi, Lucia & Barigozzi, Matteo & Capasso, Marco, 2013. "The common component of firm growth," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 26(C), pages 73-82.
    8. Watson, Mark W, 1993. "Measures of Fit for Calibrated Models," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 101(6), pages 1011-1041, December.
    9. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 2016. "Dynamic Factor Models, Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressions, and Structural Vector Autoregressions in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 415-525, Elsevier.
    10. Hallin, Marc & Lippi, Marco, 2013. "Factor models in high-dimensional time series—A time-domain approach," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 123(7), pages 2678-2695.
    11. Hendry, David F. & Hubrich, Kirstin, 2006. "Forecasting economic aggregates by disaggregates," Working Paper Series 589, European Central Bank.
    12. Diebold, Francis X & Rudebusch, Glenn D, 1996. "Measuring Business Cycles: A Modern Perspective," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 78(1), pages 67-77, February.
    13. Poncela, Pilar & Ruiz, Esther & Miranda, Karen, 2021. "Factor extraction using Kalman filter and smoothing: This is not just another survey," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1399-1425.
    14. Bates, Brandon J. & Plagborg-Møller, Mikkel & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2013. "Consistent factor estimation in dynamic factor models with structural instability," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 177(2), pages 289-304.
    15. Mustafa Çakir & Alain Kabundi, 2017. "Transmission of China's Shocks to the BRIS Countries," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 85(3), pages 430-454, September.
    16. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Ng, Serena, 2017. "Level and volatility factors in macroeconomic data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 91(C), pages 52-68.
    17. Forni, Mario & Gambetti, Luca, 2010. "The dynamic effects of monetary policy: A structural factor model approach," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(2), pages 203-216, March.
    18. Moench, Emanuel & Soofi-Siavash, Soroosh, 2022. "What moves treasury yields?," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 146(3), pages 1016-1043.
    19. Francisco Corona & Pilar Poncela & Esther Ruiz, 2017. "Determining the number of factors after stationary univariate transformations," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 351-372, August.
    20. Ludvigson, Sydney C. & Ng, Serena, 2007. "The empirical risk-return relation: A factor analysis approach," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 83(1), pages 171-222, January.

    More about this item

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:arx:papers:0912.0857. 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: arXiv administrators (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://arxiv.org/ .

    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.