IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/wpa/wuwpem/0407001.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Detecting Turning Points with Many Predictors through Hidden Markov Models

Author

Listed:
  • Benoit Bellone

    (Direction de la prévision et de l'analyse économique)

  • David Saint-Martin

    (Ecole Nationale des Ponts et Chaussées)

Abstract

This paper explores the American business cycle with the Hidden Markov Model (HMM) as a monitoring tool using monthly data. It exhibits ten US time series which offer reliable information to detect recessions in real time. It also proposes and assesses the performances of different and complementary “recession models” based on Markovian processes, discusses the most efficient and easiest way of encompassing information through these models and draws three main conclusions: simple HMM are decisive to monitor the business cycle and some series are proved highly reliable; more sophisticated models such as the Dynamic Factor with Markov Switching (DFMS) model or Stock and Watson’s Experimental Recession Index seem not to be more powerful than simple (univariate or pseudo-multivariate) Hidden Markov Models, which remain far more parsimonious; combining information in temporal space seems to work marginally better than in probability space for high frequency data. We conclude about leading and “real time detection” properties related to HMM and give some hints for further research.

Suggested Citation

  • Benoit Bellone & David Saint-Martin, 2004. "Detecting Turning Points with Many Predictors through Hidden Markov Models," Econometrics 0407001, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:wpa:wuwpem:0407001
    Note: Type of Document - pdf; pages: 34. This paper is dedicated to an analysis of business cycle indicator leading to a stochastic recession index.
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de/econ-wp/em/papers/0407/0407001.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Croushore, Dean & Stark, Tom, 2001. "A real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 111-130, November.
    2. 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.
    3. Harding, Don & Pagan, Adrian, 2003. "A comparison of two business cycle dating methods," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 27(9), pages 1681-1690, July.
    4. Albert, James H & Chib, Siddhartha, 1993. "Bayes Inference via Gibbs Sampling of Autoregressive Time Series Subject to Markov Mean and Variance Shifts," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 11(1), pages 1-15, January.
    5. Arthur F. Burns & Wesley C. Mitchell, 1946. "Measuring Business Cycles," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number burn46-1, June.
    6. Gerhard Bry & Charlotte Boschan, 1971. "Foreword to "Cyclical Analysis of Time Series: Selected Procedures and Computer Programs"," NBER Chapters, in: Cyclical Analysis of Time Series: Selected Procedures and Computer Programs, pages -1, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Hamilton, James D & Perez-Quiros, Gabriel, 1996. "What Do the Leading Indicators Lead?," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 69(1), pages 27-49, January.
    10. Marcelle Chauvet & Jeremy M. Piger, 2003. "Identifying business cycle turning points in real time," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 85(Mar), pages 47-61.
    11. Peter Reinhard Hansen, 2001. "An Unbiased and Powerful Test for Superior Predictive Ability," Working Papers 2001-06, Brown University, Department of Economics.
    12. Dean Croushore & Tom Stark, 2003. "A Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists: Does the Data Vintage Matter?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 605-617, August.
    13. Anas, Jacques & Ferrara, Laurent, 2002. "Un indicateur d'entrée et sortie de récession: application aux Etats-Unis [A start-end recession index: Application for United-States]," MPRA Paper 4043, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Eva Andersson & David Bock & Marianne Frisén, 2004. "Detection of Turning Points in Business Cycles," Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2004(1), pages 93-108.
    15. Stéphane Grégoir & Fabrice Lenglart, 1998. "Measuring the Probability of a Business Cycle Turning Point by Using a Multivariate Qualitative Hidden Markov Model," Working Papers 98-48, Center for Research in Economics and Statistics.
    16. Gerhard Bry & Charlotte Boschan, 1971. "Cyclical Analysis of Time Series: Selected Procedures and Computer Programs," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number bry_71-1, June.
    17. repec:adr:anecst:y:1999:i:54:p:05 is not listed on IDEAS
    18. Christophe Croux & Mario Forni & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2001. "A Measure Of Comovement For Economic Variables: Theory And Empirics," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 83(2), pages 232-241, May.
    19. Ferrara, Laurent, 2003. "A three-regime real-time indicator for the US economy," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 81(3), pages 373-378, December.
    20. Catherine Doz & Fabrice Lenglart, 1999. "Analyse factorielle dynamique : test du nombre de facteurs, estimation et application à l'enquête de conjoncture dans l'industrie," Annals of Economics and Statistics, GENES, issue 54, pages 91-127.
    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. Benoit Bellone, 2004. "Une lecture probabiliste du cycle d’affaires américain," Econometrics 0407002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 28 Mar 2005.
    2. Medhioub, Imed, 2007. "Asymétrie des cycles économiques et changement de régimes : cas de la Tunisie," L'Actualité Economique, Société Canadienne de Science Economique, vol. 83(4), pages 529-553, décembre.
    3. Lahiani, A. & Scaillet, O., 2009. "Testing for threshold effect in ARFIMA models: Application to US unemployment rate data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 418-428.
    4. Benoît Bellone & Erwan Gautier & Sébastien Le Coent, 2006. "Les marchés financiers anticipent-ils les retournements conjoncturels ?," Economie & Prévision, La Documentation Française, vol. 172(1), pages 83-99.
    5. Yushu Li & Simon Reese, 2014. "Wavelet improvement in turning point detection using a hidden Markov model: from the aspects of cyclical identification and outlier correction," Computational Statistics, Springer, vol. 29(6), pages 1481-1496, December.
    6. Li, Yushu & Reese, Simon, 2012. "Wavelet Improvement in Turning Point Detection using a Hidden Markov Model," Working Papers 2012:14, Lund University, Department of Economics, revised 05 Apr 2014.
    7. Benoit Bellone, 2005. "Classical Estimation of Multivariate Markov-Switching Models using MSVARlib," Econometrics 0508017, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    8. Mendoza, Liu & Morales, Daniel, 2013. "Construyendo un índice coincidente de recesión: Una aplicación para la economía peruana," Revista Estudios Económicos, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú, issue 26, pages 81-100.
    9. Mendoza, Liu & Morales, Daniel, 2012. "Constructing a real-time coincident recession index: an application to the Peruvian economy," Working Papers 2012-020, Banco Central de Reserva del Perú.
    10. Benoît Bellone, 2006. "Une lecture probabiliste du cycle d’affaires américain," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 172(1), pages 63-81.
    11. Benoit Bellone, 2004. "MSVARlib: a new Gauss library to estimate multivariate Hidden Markov Models," Econometrics 0406004, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Benoit Bellone, 2004. "Une lecture probabiliste du cycle d’affaires américain," Econometrics 0407002, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 28 Mar 2005.
    2. Benoît Bellone, 2006. "Une lecture probabiliste du cycle d’affaires américain," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 172(1), pages 63-81.
    3. Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2011. "Identification of Slowdowns and Accelerations for the Euro Area Economy," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(3), pages 335-364, June.
    4. Antonin Aviat & Frédérique Bec & Claude Diebolt & Catherine Doz & Denis Ferrand & Laurent Ferrara & Eric Heyer & Valérie Mignon & Pierre-Alain Pionnier, 2021. "Dating business cycles in France: a reference chronology," SciencePo Working papers Main hal-03373425, HAL.
    5. Chauvet, Marcelle & Piger, Jeremy, 2008. "A Comparison of the Real-Time Performance of Business Cycle Dating Methods," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 26, pages 42-49, January.
    6. Marcelle Chauvet & Jeremy Piger, 2013. "Employment And The Business Cycle," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 81, pages 16-42, October.
    7. Vincent, BODART & Konstantin, KHOLODILIN & Fati, SHADMAN-MEHTA, 2005. "Identifying and Forecasting the Turning Points of the Belgian Business Cycle with Regime-Switching and Logit Models," Discussion Papers (ECON - Département des Sciences Economiques) 2005006, Université catholique de Louvain, Département des Sciences Economiques.
    8. Charles, Amélie & Darné, Olivier & Diebolt, Claude & Ferrara, Laurent, 2015. "A new monthly chronology of the US industrial cycles in the prewar economy," Journal of Financial Stability, Elsevier, vol. 17(C), pages 3-9.
    9. Louise Holm, 2016. "The Swedish business cycle, 1969-2013," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2015(2), pages 1-22.
    10. Marcelle Chauvet & James D. Hamilton, 2006. "Dating Business Cycle Turning Points," Contributions to Economic Analysis, in: Nonlinear Time Series Analysis of Business Cycles, pages 1-54, Emerald Group Publishing Limited.
    11. Sébastien Le Coent & Erwan Gautier & Benoît Bellone, 2006. "Les marchés financiers anticipent-ils les retournements conjoncturels ?," Économie et Prévision, Programme National Persée, vol. 172(1), pages 83-99.
    12. Altug, Sumru & Bildirici, Melike, 2010. "Business Cycles around the Globe: A Regime-switching Approach," CEPR Discussion Papers 7968, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Michael T. Owyang & Jeremy Piger & Howard J. Wall, 2005. "Business Cycle Phases in U.S. States," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 87(4), pages 604-616, November.
    14. Don Harding & Adrian Pagan, 2006. "Measurement of Business Cycles," Department of Economics - Working Papers Series 966, The University of Melbourne.
    15. Monica Billio & Jacques Anas & Laurent Ferrara & Marco Lo Duca, 2007. "A turning point chronology for the Euro-zone," Working Papers 2007_33, Department of Economics, University of Venice "Ca' Foscari".
    16. Charlotte Le Chapelain, 2012. "Allocation des talents et accumulation de capital humain en France à la fin du XIXe siècle," Working Papers 12-03, Association Française de Cliométrie (AFC).
    17. Christian Schulz, 2008. "Forecasting economic activity for Estonia : The application of dynamic principal component analyses," Bank of Estonia Working Papers 2008-02, Bank of Estonia, revised 30 Oct 2008.
    18. Amélie Charles & Olivier Darné & Claude Diebolt & Laurent Ferrara, 2012. "A new monthly chronology of the US industrial cycles in the prewar economy," Working Papers hal-00693342, HAL.
    19. Aastveit, Knut Are & Jore, Anne Sofie & Ravazzolo, Francesco, 2016. "Identification and real-time forecasting of Norwegian business cycles," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 283-292.
    20. Terence C. Mills & Ping Wang, 2003. "Multivariate Markov Switching Common Factor Models for the UK," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 55(2), pages 177-193, April.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business Cycle; Markov Switching; Dynamic Factor; Coincident Indicators;
    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
    • 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

    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:wpa:wuwpem:0407001. 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: EconWPA (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://econwpa.ub.uni-muenchen.de .

    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.