IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/cpr/ceprdp/5370.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Stock Markets and Business Cycle Comovement in Germany Before World War I: Evidence from Spectral Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Ritschl, Albrecht
  • Uebele, Martin

Abstract

This paper examines the comovement of the stock market and of real activity in Germany before World War I under the efficient market hypothesis. We employ multivariate spectral analysis to compare rivaling national product estimates to stock market behaviour in the frequency domain. Close comovement of one series with the stock market enables us to decide between various rivaling business cycle chronologies. We find that business cycle dates obtained from deflated national product series are severely distorted by interference with the implicit price deflator. Among the nominal series, the income estimate of Hoffmann (1965) correlates best with the stock market, while the tax based estimate of Hoffmann and Müller (1959) is too smooth especially before 1890. We find impressive comovement between the stock market and nominal wages, a sub-series of Hoffmann's income estimate. We can show that a substantial part of this nominal wage series is driven by data on real investment activity. Our findings confirm the traditional business cycle chronology for Germany of Burns and Mitchell (1946), and lead us to discard later attempts to date the business cycle.

Suggested Citation

  • Ritschl, Albrecht & Uebele, Martin, 2005. "Stock Markets and Business Cycle Comovement in Germany Before World War I: Evidence from Spectral Analysis," CEPR Discussion Papers 5370, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:5370
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://cepr.org/publications/DP5370
    Download Restriction: CEPR Discussion Papers are free to download for our researchers, subscribers and members. If you fall into one of these categories but have trouble downloading our papers, please contact us at subscribers@cepr.org
    ---><---

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

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michele Boldrin & Lawrence J. Christiano & Jonas D.M. Fisher, 1995. "Asset Pricing Lessons for Modeling Business Cycles," NBER Working Papers 5262, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    2. Marianne Baxter & Robert G. King, 1999. "Measuring Business Cycles: Approximate Band-Pass Filters For Economic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 575-593, November.
    3. Canova, Fabio, 1998. "Detrending and business cycle facts: A user's guide," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 533-540, May.
    4. Canova, Fabio, 1998. "Detrending and business cycle facts," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 475-512, May.
    5. Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S. & Ravn, M., 1997. "On Adjusting the H-P Filter for the Frequency of Observations," Discussion Paper 1997-50, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    6. Lee A. Craig & Douglas Fisher, 2000. "The European Macroeconomy," Books, Edward Elgar Publishing, number 770.
    7. Kydland, Finn E & Prescott, Edward C, 1982. "Time to Build and Aggregate Fluctuations," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(6), pages 1345-1370, November.
    8. Tobin, James, 1969. "A General Equilibrium Approach to Monetary Theory," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 1(1), pages 15-29, February.
    9. Christiano, Lawrence J & Eichenbaum, Martin, 1992. "Current Real-Business-Cycle Theories and Aggregate Labor-Market Fluctuations," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 82(3), pages 430-450, June.
    10. Lawrence J. Christiano & Michele Boldrin & Jonas D. M. Fisher, 2001. "Habit Persistence, Asset Returns, and the Business Cycle," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 91(1), pages 149-166, March.
    11. Ulrich Woitek, 1998. "A Note on the Baxter-King Filter," Working Papers 9813, Business School - Economics, University of Glasgow.
    12. Romer, Christina D, 1989. "The Prewar Business Cycle Reconsidered: New Estimates of Gross National Product, 1869-1908," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 1-37, February.
    13. Arthur F. Burns & Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946. "Measuring Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn46-1.
    14. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 2003. "The Band Pass Filter," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 44(2), pages 435-465, May.
    15. Jermann, Urban J., 1998. "Asset pricing in production economies," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 257-275, April.
    16. Hayashi, Fumio, 1982. "Tobin's Marginal q and Average q: A Neoclassical Interpretation," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 50(1), pages 213-224, January.
    17. Balke, Nathan S & Gordon, Robert J, 1989. "The Estimation of Prewar Gross National Product: Methodology and New Evidence," Journal of Political Economy, University of Chicago Press, vol. 97(1), pages 38-92, February.
    18. Romer, Christina D, 1986. "Is the Stabilization of the Postwar Economy a Figment of the Data?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 76(3), pages 314-334, June.
    19. Ritschl Albrecht & Spoerer Mark, 1997. "Das Bruttosozialprodukt in Deutschland nach den amtlichen Volkseinkommens- und Sozialproduktsstatistiken 1901-1995," Jahrbuch für Wirtschaftsgeschichte / Economic History Yearbook, De Gruyter, vol. 38(2), pages 27-54, December.
    20. Rajan, Raghuram G. & Zingales, Luigi, 2003. "The great reversals: the politics of financial development in the twentieth century," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 69(1), pages 5-50, July.
    21. Granger, C W J, 1969. "Investigating Causal Relations by Econometric Models and Cross-Spectral Methods," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 37(3), pages 424-438, July.
    22. A'Hearn, Brian & Woitek, Ulrich, 2001. "More international evidence on the historical properties of business cycles," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(2), pages 321-346, April.
    23. Cogley, Timothy & Nason, James M., 1995. "Effects of the Hodrick-Prescott filter on trend and difference stationary time series Implications for business cycle research," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 19(1-2), pages 253-278.
    24. Sarferaz, Samad & Uebele, Martin, 2009. "Tracking down the business cycle: A dynamic factor model for Germany 1820-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 368-387, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. William A. Allen & Richhild Moessner, 2011. "The international propagation of the financial crisis of 2008 and a comparison with 1931," BIS Working Papers 348, Bank for International Settlements.
    2. Narjess Bouslama, 2023. "Interdependence between the BRICS Stock Markets and the Oil Price since the Onset of Financial and Economic Crises," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 16(7), pages 1-22, June.
    3. Pandey, Dharen Kumar & Lucey, Brian M. & Kumar, Satish, 2023. "Border disputes, conflicts, war, and financial markets research: A systematic review," Research in International Business and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 65(C).
    4. Sarferaz, Samad & Uebele, Martin, 2007. "Tracking down the business cycle: A dynamic factor model for Germany 1820-1913," SFB 649 Discussion Papers 2007-039, Humboldt University Berlin, Collaborative Research Center 649: Economic Risk.
    5. Rania Jammazi & Chaker Aloui, 2014. "Cyclical components and dual long memory in the foreign exchange rate dynamics: the Tunisian case," Working Papers 2014-198, Department of Research, Ipag Business School.
    6. Łukasz Lenart & Mateusz Pipień, 2017. "Non-Parametric Test for the Existence of the Common Deterministic Cycle: The Case of the Selected European Countries," Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, Central European Journal of Economic Modelling and Econometrics, vol. 9(3), pages 201-241, September.
    7. Sarferaz, Samad & Uebele, Martin, 2009. "Tracking down the business cycle: A dynamic factor model for Germany 1820-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 368-387, July.
    8. Thomas C. Owen, 2013. "Measuring business cycles in the Russian Empire," Economic History Review, Economic History Society, vol. 66(3), pages 895-916, August.
    9. Tang, Ling & Yu, Lean & He, Kaijian, 2014. "A novel data-characteristic-driven modeling methodology for nuclear energy consumption forecasting," Applied Energy, Elsevier, vol. 128(C), pages 1-14.
    10. Wang, Delu & Tian, Cuicui & Mao, Jinqi & Chen, Fan, 2023. "Forecasting coal demand in key coal consuming industries based on the data-characteristic-driven decomposition ensemble model," Energy, Elsevier, vol. 282(C).
    11. Ignacio Escanuela Romana & Clara Escanuela Nieves, 2023. "A spectral approach to stock market performance," Papers 2305.05762, arXiv.org.
    12. Lukasz Lenart, 2015. "Discrete Spectral Analysis. The Case of Industrial Production in Selected European Countries," Dynamic Econometric Models, Uniwersytet Mikolaja Kopernika, vol. 15, pages 27-47.
    13. Reijnders, Jan P.G., 2009. "Trend movements and inverted Kondratieff waves in the Dutch economy, 1800-1913," Structural Change and Economic Dynamics, Elsevier, vol. 20(2), pages 90-113, June.

    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. repec:hum:wpaper:sfb649dp2005-056 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Sarferaz, Samad & Uebele, Martin, 2009. "Tracking down the business cycle: A dynamic factor model for Germany 1820-1913," Explorations in Economic History, Elsevier, vol. 46(3), pages 368-387, July.
    3. Ritschl, Albrecht & Uebele, Martin & Sarferaz, Samad, 2008. "The U.S. Business Cycle, 1867-1995: A Dynamic Factor Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7069, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    4. Luca Benati, 2001. "Band-pass filtering, cointegration, and business cycle analysis," Bank of England working papers 142, Bank of England.
    5. Aadland, David, 2005. "Detrending time-aggregated data," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 89(3), pages 287-293, December.
    6. Odia Ndongo, Yves Francis, 2006. "Datation du Cycle du PIB Camerounais entre 1960 et 2003," MPRA Paper 552, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    7. Rand, John & Tarp, Finn, 2002. "Business Cycles in Developing Countries: Are They Different?," World Development, Elsevier, vol. 30(12), pages 2071-2088, December.
    8. Mertens, Elmar, 2010. "Structural shocks and the comovements between output and interest rates," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 1171-1186, June.
    9. Gorodnichenko, Yuriy & Ng, Serena, 2010. "Estimation of DSGE models when the data are persistent," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 57(3), pages 325-340, April.
    10. Uhlig, H.F.H.V.S. & Ravn, M., 1997. "On Adjusting the H-P Filter for the Frequency of Observations," Discussion Paper 1997-50, Tilburg University, Center for Economic Research.
    11. Álvarez, Luis J. & Gómez-Loscos, Ana, 2018. "A menu on output gap estimation methods," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 40(4), pages 827-850.
    12. Lisa Sella & Gianna Vivaldo & Andreas Groth & Michael Ghil, 2016. "Economic Cycles and Their Synchronization: A Comparison of Cyclic Modes in Three European Countries," Post-Print hal-01701122, HAL.
    13. Angelos VOULDIS & Panayotis MICHAELIDES & John MILIOS, 2008. "Do Technology Shocks affect Output and Profitability over the Business Cycle in Greece (1960-2008)?," EcoMod2008 23800152, EcoMod.
    14. Stijn Claessens & M Ayhan Kose, 2018. "Frontiers of macrofinancial linkages," BIS Papers, Bank for International Settlements, number 95.
    15. Ard den Reijer, 2006. "The Dutch business cycle: which indicators should we monitor?," DNB Working Papers 100, Netherlands Central Bank, Research Department.
    16. Bartoletto, Silvana & Chiarini, Bruno & Marzano, Elisabetta & Piselli, Paolo, 2019. "Business cycles, credit cycles, and asymmetric effects of credit fluctuations: Evidence from Italy for the period of 1861–2013," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 61(C), pages 1-1.
    17. Lisa Sella & Gianna Vivaldo & Andreas Groth & Michael Ghil, 2016. "Economic Cycles and Their Synchronization: A Comparison of Cyclic Modes in Three European Countries," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 12(1), pages 25-48, September.
    18. Viv B. Hall & Peter Thomson, 2022. "A boosted HP filter for business cycle analysis:evidence from New Zealand's small open economy," CAMA Working Papers 2022-45, Centre for Applied Macroeconomic Analysis, Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University.
    19. Drew Creal & Siem Jan Koopman & Eric Zivot, 2008. "The Effect of the Great Moderation on the U.S. Business Cycle in a Time-varying Multivariate Trend-cycle Model," Tinbergen Institute Discussion Papers 08-069/4, Tinbergen Institute.
    20. Schüler, Yves S. & Hiebert, Paul P. & Peltonen, Tuomas A., 2020. "Financial cycles: Characterisation and real-time measurement," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 100(C).
    21. Hall, Viv B & Thomson, Peter, 2022. "A boosted HP filter for business cycle analysis: evidence from New Zealand’s small open economy," Working Paper Series 9473, Victoria University of Wellington, School of Economics and Finance.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycle chronology; Imperial germany; Spectral analysis; Efficient market hypothesis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy
    • N13 - Economic History - - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics; Industrial Structure; Growth; Fluctuations - - - Europe: Pre-1913

    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:cpr:ceprdp:5370. 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: the person in charge (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.cepr.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.