IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/rba/rbardp/rdp9809.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Estimating Output Gaps

Author

Listed:
  • Gordon de Brouwer

    (Reserve Bank of Australia)

Abstract

The output gap, defined as actual less potential output, is an important variable in its own right and as an indicator of incipient changes in inflation. This paper reviews five methods of estimating it for Australian GDP data, including linear time trends, Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter trends, multivariate HP filter trends, unobservable components models and a production function model. Estimates of the gap vary with the method used and are sensitive to changes in model specification and sample period. While gap estimates at any particular point in time are imprecise, the broad profile of the gap is similar across the range of methods examined. Inflation equations are substantially improved when any measure of the gap is included, and output gaps generally explain innovations in inflation better than output growth.

Suggested Citation

  • Gordon de Brouwer, 1998. "Estimating Output Gaps," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9809, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    • Handle: RePEc:rba:rbardp:rdp9809
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.rba.gov.au/publications/rdp/1998/pdf/rdp9809.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Hodrick, Robert J & Prescott, Edward C, 1997. "Postwar U.S. Business Cycles: An Empirical Investigation," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 29(1), pages 1-16, February.
    2. de Brouwer, Gordon & Ericsson, Neil R, 1998. "Modeling Inflation in Australia," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 16(4), pages 433-449, October.
    3. Pierre St-Amant & Simon van Norden, 1997. "Measurement of the Output Gap: A Discussion of Recent Research at the Bank of Canada," Technical Reports 79, Bank of Canada.
    4. Guy Debelle & James Vickery, 1998. "Is the Phillips Curve A Curve? Some Evidence and Implications for Australia," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 74(227), pages 384-398, December.
    5. A. W. Phillips, 1958. "The Relation Between Unemployment and the Rate of Change of Money Wage Rates in the United Kingdom, 1861–1957," Economica, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 25(100), pages 283-299, November.
    6. King, Robert G. & Rebelo, Sergio T., 1993. "Low frequency filtering and real business cycles," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 17(1-2), pages 207-231.
    7. Watson, Mark W., 1986. "Univariate detrending methods with stochastic trends," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 18(1), pages 49-75, July.
    8. Guy Debelle & Glenn Stevens, 1995. "Monetary Policy Goals for Inflation in Australia," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9503, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    9. Harvey, A C & Jaeger, A, 1993. "Detrending, Stylized Facts and the Business Cycle," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 8(3), pages 231-247, July-Sept.
    10. Lynne Cockerell & Bill Russell, 1995. "Australian Wage and Price Inflation: 1971-1994," RBA Research Discussion Papers rdp9509, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    11. Kuttner, Kenneth N, 1994. "Estimating Potential Output as a Latent Variable," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 12(3), pages 361-368, July.
    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. Athanasios Orphanides & Simon van Norden, 2002. "The Unreliability of Output-Gap Estimates in Real Time," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 84(4), pages 569-583, November.
    2. Alain Guay & Pierre Saint-Amant, 2005. "Do the Hodrick-Prescott and Baxter-King Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 77, pages 133-155.
    3. Cayen, Jean-Philippe & van Norden, Simon, 2005. "The reliability of Canadian output-gap estimates," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 373-393, December.
    4. Gerlach, Stefan & Smets, Frank, 1999. "Output gaps and monetary policy in the EMU area1," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 43(4-6), pages 801-812, April.
    5. Zsolt Darvas & Gábor Vadas, 2003. "Univariate Potential Output Estimations for Hungary," MNB Working Papers 2003/8, Magyar Nemzeti Bank (Central Bank of Hungary).
    6. Maral Kichian, 1999. "Measuring Potential Output within a State-Space Framework," Staff Working Papers 99-9, Bank of Canada.
    7. Joseph Atta-Mensah & Sawuya Nakijoba, 2019. "Estimating the Potential Output and Output Gap of Ghana," Applied Economics and Finance, Redfame publishing, vol. 6(3), pages 58-70, May.
    8. Blonigen, Bruce A. & Piger, Jeremy & Sly, Nicholas, 2014. "Comovement in GDP trends and cycles among trading partners," Journal of International Economics, Elsevier, vol. 94(2), pages 239-247.
    9. S. Adnan H. A. S. Bukhari & Safdar Ullah Khan, 2008. "Estimating Output Gap for Pakistan Economy: Structural and Statistical Approaches," SBP Research Bulletin, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department, vol. 4, pages 31-60.
    10. Odile Chagny & Jörg Döpke, 2001. "Measures of the Output Gap in the Euro-Zone: An Empirical Assessment of Selected Methods," Vierteljahrshefte zur Wirtschaftsforschung / Quarterly Journal of Economic Research, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research, vol. 70(3), pages 310-332.
    11. Jorg Scheibe, 2003. "The Chinese Output Gap During the Reform Period 1978-2002," Economics Series Working Papers 179, University of Oxford, Department of Economics.
    12. David E. Giles & Chad N. Stroomer, 2004. "Identifying the Cycle of a Macroeconomic Time-Series Using Fuzzy Filtering," Econometrics Working Papers 0406, Department of Economics, University of Victoria.
    13. Kaloyan Ganev, 2004. "Statistical estimates of the deviations from the macroeconomic potential. An application to the economy of Bulgaria," Working paper series 12004en, Agency for Economic Analysis and Forecasting.
    14. Mahmood-ul-Hasan Khan, 2008. "Short Run Effects of an Unanticipated Change in Monetary Policy: Interpreting Macroeconomic Dynamics in Pakistan," SBP Research Bulletin, State Bank of Pakistan, Research Department, vol. 4, pages 1-30.
    15. Sergey Sinelnikov-Murylev & Sergey Drobyshevsky & Maria Kazakova & Michael Alexeev, 2016. "Decomposition of Russia's GDP Growth Rates," Research Paper Series, Gaidar Institute for Economic Policy, issue 167P, pages 123-123.
    16. Rodríguez, Gabriel, 2010. "Using A Forward-Looking Phillips Curve to Estimate the Output Gap in Peru," Review of Applied Economics, Lincoln University, Department of Financial and Business Systems, vol. 6(01-2), pages 1-13, April.
    17. Basistha, Arabinda & Nelson, Charles R., 2007. "New measures of the output gap based on the forward-looking new Keynesian Phillips curve," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 498-511, March.
    18. Mr. Ebrima A Faal, 2005. "GDP Growth, Potential Output, and Output Gaps in Mexico," IMF Working Papers 2005/093, International Monetary Fund.
    19. Alain Guay & Pierre St-Amant, 1996. "Do Mechanical Filters Provide a Good Approximation of Business Cycles?," Technical Reports 78, Bank of Canada.
    20. Eduardo Loría & Emmanuel Salas, 2014. "Ciclos, crecimiento económico y crisis en México, 1980.1-2013.4," Estudios Económicos, El Colegio de México, Centro de Estudios Económicos, vol. 29(2), pages 131-161.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    output gap; potential output;

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • O56 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economywide Country Studies - - - Oceania

    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:rba:rbardp:rdp9809. 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: Paula Drew (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/rbagvau.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.