IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/lau/crdeep/03.02.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do Financial Variables Provide Information about the Swiss Business Cycle ?

Author

Listed:
  • Fabio ALESSANDRINI

Abstract

This paper extends the literature on the information content of financial variables with respect to future economic growth. It shows that variables originating from both the equity market and the bond market in Switzerland are useful indicators for forecasting the Swiss business cycle. In particular, the difference between risk-free long-term and short-term rates is an effcient indicator for both the amplitude and the timing, especially over long forecasting horizons. Part of this power seems however to be linked to monetary policy. Contrary to evidence from the US, equity returns are useful only in forecasting the timing of the cycle. It is also shown that financial variables, coupled with indicators from the real economy, form the most effcient combination for forecasting economic growth at all time horizons. Moreover, foreign financial variables also provide useful information. This paper uses for the first time the business cycle dates for Switzerland computed recently by Amstad (2000).

Suggested Citation

  • Fabio ALESSANDRINI, 2003. "Do Financial Variables Provide Information about the Swiss Business Cycle ?," Cahiers de Recherches Economiques du Département d'économie 03.02, Université de Lausanne, Faculté des HEC, Département d’économie.
    • Handle: RePEc:lau:crdeep:03.02
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.hec.unil.ch/deep/textes/03.02.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Bernard, Henri & Gerlach, Stefan, 1998. "Does the Term Structure Predict Recessions? The International Evidence," International Journal of Finance & Economics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 3(3), pages 195-215, July.
    2. E. P. Davis & S. G. B. Henry, 1994. "The Use of Financial Spreads as Indicator Variables: Evidence for the United Kingdom and Germany," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 41(3), pages 517-525, September.
    3. Estrella, Arturo & Mishkin, Frederic S., 1997. "The predictive power of the term structure of interest rates in Europe and the United States: Implications for the European Central Bank," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 41(7), pages 1375-1401, July.
    4. Jorion, Philippe & Mishkin, Frederic, 1991. "A multicountry comparison of term-structure forecasts at long horizons," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 59-80, March.
    5. Zuliu Hu, 1993. "The Yield Curve and Real Activity," IMF Working Papers 1993/019, International Monetary Fund.
    6. Artis, Michael J & Kontolemis, Zenon G & Osborn, Denise, 1995. "Classical Business Cycles for G7 and European Countries," CEPR Discussion Papers 1137, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    7. Davis, E Philip & Henry, S G B & Pesaran, B, 1994. "The Role of Financial Spreads: Empirical Analysis of Spreads and Real Activity," The Manchester School of Economic & Social Studies, University of Manchester, vol. 62(4), pages 374-394, December.
    8. Nasseh, Alireza & Strauss, Jack, 2000. "Stock prices and domestic and international macroeconomic activity: a cointegration approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 229-245.
    9. Chen, Nai-Fu & Roll, Richard & Ross, Stephen A, 1986. "Economic Forces and the Stock Market," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 59(3), pages 383-403, July.
    10. Smets, Frank & Tsatsaronis, Kostas, 1997. "Why Does the Yield Curve Predict Economic Activity? Dissecting the Evidence for Germany and the United States," CEPR Discussion Papers 1758, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Estrella, Arturo, 1998. "A New Measure of Fit for Equations with Dichotomous Dependent Variables," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(2), pages 198-205, April.
    12. Merton, Robert C, 1973. "An Intertemporal Capital Asset Pricing Model," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 41(5), pages 867-887, September.
    13. Lucas, Robert E, Jr, 1978. "Asset Prices in an Exchange Economy," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 46(6), pages 1429-1445, November.
    14. Canova, Fabio & De Nicolo', Gianni, 1995. "Stock returns and real activity: A structural approach," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 39(5), pages 981-1015, May.
    15. Fama, Eugene F. & French, Kenneth R., 1989. "Business conditions and expected returns on stocks and bonds," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 25(1), pages 23-49, November.
    16. repec:zbw:bofrdp:2002_002 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Fama, Eugene F, 1990. "Stock Returns, Expected Returns, and Real Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 45(4), pages 1089-1108, September.
    18. Estrella, Arturo & Hardouvelis, Gikas A, 1991. "The Term Structure as a Predictor of Real Economic Activity," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 555-576, June.
    19. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    20. Lee, Bong-Soo, 1992. "Causal Relations among Stock Returns, Interest Rates, Real Activity, and Inflation," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 47(4), pages 1591-1603, September.
    21. Nicolas A. Cuche, 2000. "Alternative Indicator of Moneary Policy for a Small Open Economy," Working Papers 00.12, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    22. Plosser, Charles I. & Geert Rouwenhorst, K., 1994. "International term structures and real economic growth," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 33(1), pages 133-155, February.
    23. Olivier Jean Blanchard & Stanley Fischer, 1989. "Lectures on Macroeconomics," MIT Press Books, The MIT Press, edition 1, volume 1, number 0262022834, April.
    24. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    25. Zuliu Hu, 1993. "The Yield Curve and Real Activity," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 40(4), pages 781-806, December.
    26. Chen, Nai-Fu, 1991. "Financial Investment Opportunities and the Macroeconomy," Journal of Finance, American Finance Association, vol. 46(2), pages 529-554, June.
    27. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1993. "A Procedure for Predicting Recessions with Leading Indicators: Econometric Issues and Recent Experience," NBER Chapters, in: Business Cycles, Indicators, and Forecasting, pages 95-156, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    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. Mario Meichle & Angelo Ranaldo & Attilio Zanetti, 2011. "Do financial variables help predict the state of the business cycle in small open economies? Evidence from Switzerland," Financial Markets and Portfolio Management, Springer;Swiss Society for Financial Market Research, vol. 25(4), pages 435-453, December.
    2. Melvin Muzi Khomo & Meshach Jesse Aziakpono, 2007. "Forecasting Recession In South Africa: A Comparison Of The Yield Curve And Other Economic Indicators," South African Journal of Economics, Economic Society of South Africa, vol. 75(2), pages 194-212, 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. Franck Sédillot, 2001. "La pente des taux contient-elle de l'information sur l'activité économique future ?," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 147(1), pages 141-157.
    2. Morell, Joseph, 2018. "The decline in the predictive power of the US term spread: A structural interpretation," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 55(C), pages 314-331.
    3. Leo Krippner, 2005. "Investigating the Relationships between the Yield Curve, Output and Inflation using an Arbitrage-Free Version of the Nelson and Siegel Class of Yield Curve Models," Working Papers in Economics 05/02, University of Waikato.
    4. Hardouvelis, Gikas & Malliaropoulos, Dimitrios, 2004. "The Yield Spread as a Symmetric Predictor of Output and Inflation," CEPR Discussion Papers 4314, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Arturo Estrella & Anthony P. Rodrigues & Sebastian Schich, 2003. "How Stable is the Predictive Power of the Yield Curve? Evidence from Germany and the United States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 629-644, August.
    6. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1998. "Predicting U.S. Recessions: Financial Variables As Leading Indicators," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(1), pages 45-61, February.
    7. Hamilton, James D & Kim, Dong Heon, 2002. "A Reexamination of the Predictability of Economic Activity Using the Yield Spread," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 34(2), pages 340-360, May.
    8. Jardet, Caroline, 2004. "Why did the term structure of interest rates lose its predictive power?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 21(3), pages 509-524, May.
    9. Willi Semmler, 2011. "Asset Prices, Booms and Recessions," Springer Books, Springer, number 978-3-642-20680-1, July.
    10. Nakaota, Hiroshi & Fukuta, Yuichi, 2013. "The leading indicator property of the term spread and the monetary policy factors in Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 28(C), pages 85-98.
    11. Ang, Andrew & Piazzesi, Monika & Wei, Min, 2006. "What does the yield curve tell us about GDP growth?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 131(1-2), pages 359-403.
    12. Fabio Moneta, 2005. "Does the Yield Spread Predict Recessions in the Euro Area?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 8(2), pages 263-301, August.
    13. Hyde, Stuart & Sherif, Mohamed, 2010. "Consumption asset pricing and the term structure," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 50(1), pages 99-109, February.
    14. M. Isabel Martínez-Serna & Eliseo Navarro-Arribas, 2002. "El modelo de McCallum. Evidencia empírica en la estructura temporal de los tipos de interés española," Investigaciones Economicas, Fundación SEPI, vol. 26(2), pages 323-357, May.
    15. David C. Wheelock & Mark E. Wohar, 2009. "Can the term spread predict output growth and recessions? a survey of the literature," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 91(Sep), pages 419-440.
    16. Raffaele Passaro, 2007. "The Predictive Power of Interest Rates Spread for Economic Activity," Rivista di Politica Economica, SIPI Spa, vol. 97(6), pages 81-112, November-.
    17. Viktor Kotlan, 2002. "Monetary Policy and the Term Spread in a Macro Model of a Small Open Economy," Working Papers 2002/01, Czech National Bank.
    18. Ahrens, R., 2002. "Predicting recessions with interest rate spreads: a multicountry regime-switching analysis," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 21(4), pages 519-537, August.
    19. Rebecca Stuart, 2020. "Monetary regimes, the term structure and business cycles in Ireland, 1972–2018," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 88(5), pages 731-748, September.
    20. Christis Hassapis, 2003. "Financial variables and real activity in Canada," Canadian Journal of Economics/Revue canadienne d'économique, John Wiley & Sons, vol. 36(2), pages 421-442, May.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    forecasting; probit model; term structure; business cycle;
    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
    • E44 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Money and Interest Rates - - - Financial Markets and the Macroeconomy

    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:lau:crdeep:03.02. 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: Christina Seld (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/deelsch.html .

    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.