IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/swe/wpaper/2015-17.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Changes in the Factor Structure of the U.S. Economy: Permanent Breaks or Business Cycle Regimes?

Author

Listed:
  • Luke Hartigan

    (School of Economics, UNSW Business School, UNSW)

Abstract

The factor structure of the U.S. economy appears to change over time. Unlike previous studies which suggest this is due to permanent structural breaks in factor loadings, I argue instead that the volatility and persistence of factor processes undergo recurring changes related to the business cycle. To capture this, I develop a two-step Markov-switching static factor estimation procedure and apply it to a well-studied U.S. macroeconomic data set. I find strong support for Markov-switching in the factors processes, with switching variances being most dominant. Conditional on Markov-switching factor processes, tests for regime-dependent factor loadings show only moderate evidence of change. Overall, the results support regime-dependent factor processes as the main explanation for the diverging number of estimated factors in empirical applications and challenge the global linearity assumption implicit in large dimensional factor models of the U.S. economy.

Suggested Citation

  • Luke Hartigan, 2015. "Changes in the Factor Structure of the U.S. Economy: Permanent Breaks or Business Cycle Regimes?," Discussion Papers 2015-17, School of Economics, The University of New South Wales.
    • Handle: RePEc:swe:wpaper:2015-17
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://research.economics.unsw.edu.au/RePEc/papers/2015-17.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Marianne Sensier & Dick van Dijk, 2004. "Testing for Volatility Changes in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 86(3), pages 833-839, August.
    2. Hansen, Bruce E, 1992. "The Likelihood Ratio Test under Nonstandard Conditions: Testing the Markov Switching Model of GNP," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 7(S), pages 61-82, Suppl. De.
    3. 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.
    4. Joshua C.C. Chan & Gary Koop & Roberto Leon-Gonzalez & Rodney W. Strachan, 2012. "Time Varying Dimension Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 358-367, January.
    5. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2002. "Determining the Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, January.
    6. Bai, Jushan & Ng, Serena, 2007. "Determining the Number of Primitive Shocks in Factor Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 25, pages 52-60, January.
    7. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2005. "Implications of Dynamic Factor Models for VAR Analysis," NBER Working Papers 11467, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    8. Harding, Don & Pagan, Adrian, 2002. "Dissecting the cycle: a methodological investigation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 49(2), pages 365-381, March.
    9. Chen, Liang & Dolado, Juan J. & Gonzalo, Jesús, 2014. "Detecting big structural breaks in large factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 180(1), pages 30-48.
    10. Breitung, Jörg & Eickmeier, Sandra, 2011. "Testing for structural breaks in dynamic factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 163(1), pages 71-84, July.
    11. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 1996. "Evidence on Structural Instability in Macroeconomic Time Series Relations," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 14(1), pages 11-30, January.
    12. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1998. "Business Cycle Turning Points, A New Coincident Index, And Tests Of Duration Dependence Based On A Dynamic Factor Model With Regime Switching," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 80(2), pages 188-201, May.
    13. Yohei Yamamoto, 2016. "Forecasting With Nonspurious Factors in U.S. Macroeconomic Time Series," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(1), pages 81-106, January.
    14. Castle, Jennifer & Shephard, Neil (ed.), 2009. "The Methodology and Practice of Econometrics: A Festschrift in Honour of David F. Hendry," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780199237197.
    15. Kim, Chang-Jin, 1994. "Dynamic linear models with Markov-switching," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 60(1-2), pages 1-22.
    16. Alexei Onatski, 2010. "Determining the Number of Factors from Empirical Distribution of Eigenvalues," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 92(4), pages 1004-1016, November.
    17. Han, Xu & Inoue, Atsushi, 2015. "Tests For Parameter Instability In Dynamic Factor Models," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 31(5), pages 1117-1152, October.
    18. 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.
    19. Yamamoto, Yohei & Tanaka, Shinya, 2015. "Testing for factor loading structural change under common breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 189(1), pages 187-206.
    20. Mehmet Caner & Xu Han, 2014. "Selecting the Correct Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models: The Large Panel Case With Group Bridge Estimators," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(3), pages 359-374, July.
    21. Marine Carrasco & Liang Hu & Werner Ploberger, 2014. "Optimal Test for Markov Switching Parameters," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 82(2), pages 765-784, March.
    22. Seung C. Ahn & Alex R. Horenstein, 2013. "Eigenvalue Ratio Test for the Number of Factors," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 81(3), pages 1203-1227, May.
    23. Maximo Camacho & Gabriel Perez‐Quiros & Pilar Poncela, 2015. "Extracting Nonlinear Signals from Several Economic Indicators," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(7), pages 1073-1089, November.
    24. Chang-Jin Kim & Charles R. Nelson, 1999. "Has The U.S. Economy Become More Stable? A Bayesian Approach Based On A Markov-Switching Model Of The Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 81(4), pages 608-616, November.
    25. Gabriel Perez-Quiros & Margaret M. McConnell, 2000. "Output Fluctuations in the United States: What Has Changed since the Early 1980's?," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 90(5), pages 1464-1476, December.
    26. James Morley & Jeremy Piger, 2012. "The Asymmetric Business Cycle," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(1), pages 208-221, February.
    27. Corradi, Valentina & Swanson, Norman R., 2014. "Testing for structural stability of factor augmented forecasting models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 182(1), pages 100-118.
    28. Bai, Jushan & Ng, Serena, 2008. "Large Dimensional Factor Analysis," Foundations and Trends(R) in Econometrics, now publishers, vol. 3(2), pages 89-163, June.
    29. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark, 2011. "Dynamic Factor Models," Scholarly Articles 28469541, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    30. 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.
    31. Hamilton, James D, 1989. "A New Approach to the Economic Analysis of Nonstationary Time Series and the Business Cycle," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 57(2), pages 357-384, March.
    32. Chauvet, Marcelle, 1998. "An Econometric Characterization of Business Cycle Dynamics with Factor Structure and Regime Switching," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 969-996, November.
    33. Alessi, Lucia & Barigozzi, Matteo & Capasso, Marco, 2010. "Improved penalization for determining the number of factors in approximate factor models," Statistics & Probability Letters, Elsevier, vol. 80(23-24), pages 1806-1813, December.
    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. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Hartigan, Luke, 2016. "Is the Assumption of Linearity in Factor Models too Strong in Practice?," Working Papers 2072/261531, Universitat Rovira i Virgili, Department of Economics.
    2. Aslanidis, Nektarios & Hartigan, Luke, 2021. "Is the assumption of constant factor loadings too strong in practice?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 100-108.

    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. Catherine Doz & Peter Fuleky, 2019. "Dynamic Factor Models," Working Papers 2019-4, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    2. Luke Hartigan & James Morley, 2020. "A Factor Model Analysis of the Australian Economy and the Effects of Inflation Targeting," The Economic Record, The Economic Society of Australia, vol. 96(314), pages 271-293, September.
    3. 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.
    4. Barigozzi, Matteo & Trapani, Lorenzo, 2020. "Sequential testing for structural stability in approximate factor models," Stochastic Processes and their Applications, Elsevier, vol. 130(8), pages 5149-5187.
    5. Laurent Callot & Johannes Tang Kristensen, 2016. "Regularized Estimation of Structural Instability in Factor Models: The US Macroeconomy and the Great Moderation," Advances in Econometrics, in: Dynamic Factor Models, volume 35, pages 437-479, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    6. 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.
    7. Bai, Jushan & Duan, Jiangtao & Han, Xu, 2024. "The likelihood ratio test for structural changes in factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 238(2).
    8. Mao Takongmo, Charles Olivier & Stevanovic, Dalibor, 2015. "Selection Of The Number Of Factors In Presence Of Structural Instability: A Monte Carlo Study," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 91(1-2), pages 177-233, Mars-Juin.
    9. 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.
    10. Fu, Zhonghao & Hong, Yongmiao & Wang, Xia, 2023. "Testing for structural changes in large dimensional factor models via discrete Fourier transform," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 302-331.
    11. Chou, Ray Yeutien & Yen, Tso-Jung & Yen, Yu-Min, 2020. "Macroeconomic forecasting using approximate factor models with outliers," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(2), pages 267-291.
    12. Barigozzi, Matteo & Cho, Haeran & Fryzlewicz, Piotr, 2018. "Simultaneous multiple change-point and factor analysis for high-dimensional time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 206(1), pages 187-225.
    13. Luke Hartigan & James Morley, 2018. "A Factor Model Analysis of the Effects on Inflation Targeting on the Australian Economy," RBA Annual Conference Volume (Discontinued), in: John Simon & Maxwell Sutton (ed.),Central Bank Frameworks: Evolution or Revolution?, Reserve Bank of Australia.
    14. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    15. Matteo Barigozzi & Marc Hallin, 2023. "Dynamic Factor Models: a Genealogy," Papers 2310.17278, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2024.
    16. Baltagi, Badi H. & Kao, Chihwa & Wang, Fa, 2021. "Estimating and testing high dimensional factor models with multiple structural changes," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 220(2), pages 349-365.
    17. Baltagi, Badi H. & Kao, Chihwa & Wang, Fa, 2017. "Identification and estimation of a large factor model with structural instability," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 197(1), pages 87-100.
    18. repec:cte:wsrepe:23974 is not listed on IDEAS
    19. Bai, Jushan & Han, Xu & Shi, Yutang, 2020. "Estimation and inference of change points in high-dimensional factor models," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 219(1), pages 66-100.
    20. Ma, Chenchen & Tu, Yundong, 2023. "Group fused Lasso for large factor models with multiple structural breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 233(1), pages 132-154.
    21. Michael T. Owyang & Jeremy Piger & Daniel Soques, 2022. "Contagious switching," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(2), pages 415-432, March.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Approximate Factor Model; Large Data Sets; Markov Switching Model; Structural Breaks;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C38 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Classification Methdos; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Analysis
    • C51 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Construction and Estimation
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

    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:swe:wpaper:2015-17. 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: Hongyi Li (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/senswau.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.