On Waves in War and Elections Wavelet Analysis of Political Time-Series

Luís Aguiar-Conraria (), Pedro C. Magalhães () and Maria Joana Soares ()
Additional contact information
Pedro C. Magalhães: University of Lisbon, Social Sciences Institute
Maria Joana Soares: Universidade do Minho

No 1/2010, NIPE Working Papers from NIPE - Universidade do Minho

Abstract: Spectral analysis and ARMA models have been the most established weapons of choice for the detection of cycles in time series data. However, such techniques are only appropriate when periodic components are time invariant. This has led some scholars to disregard the possibility of irregular cycles. We aim to contribute to further reconsideration of the possibility of cycles in political phenomena by introducing wavelet analysis. Its main contribution comes from the ability to estimate the spectral characteristics of a time series as a function of time, thus revealing how its different periodic components change over time, while preserving rigorous standards of statistical inference. We demonstrate the usefulness of wavelet analysis with two applications. The first concerns the possibility of long-cycles in wars, one of the central puzzles in the international relations sub-field. The second concerns election returns in presidential and congressional elections in the United States, where the existence of cyclical patterns has been equally controversial. Contrary to the prevailing wisdom, wavelet analysis allows the detection of transient and coexisting cycles, shedding some light over phenomena that have remained unaddressed so far.

Date: 2010
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-pol
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
http://www3.eeg.uminho.pt/economia/nipe/docs/2010/NIPE_WP_1_2010.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:nip:nipewp:1/2010

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in NIPE Working Papers from NIPE - Universidade do Minho Núcleo de Investigação em Políticas Económicas e Empresariais, Escola de Economia e Gestão, Universidade do Minho, P-4710-057 Braga, Portugal. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by NIPE ().