A Tale of Three Seasonal Adjustment Procedures: The Case of Sweden's GDP

Luigi Ermini
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Luigi Ermini: Dept. of Economic Statistics, Stockholm School of Economics, Postal: P.O. Box 6501, S-113 83 Stockholm, Sweden

No 230, SSE/EFI Working Paper Series in Economics and Finance from Stockholm School of Economics

Abstract: The paper compares the search for structural breaks in Sweden's GDP conducted with X-11 seasonally adjusted data, with seasonally unadjusted data, and with temporally aggregated data. A structural break (in 1980) is found only in the X-11 adjusted data, it is plausible to conclude that this break is due to data distortions (particularly, distortions caused by the application of the filter). However, this interpretation is only plausible a posteriori: had the seasonally unadjusted data not been available, the break found in the adjusted series could be just as well interpreted as a break in the economy and not as a break in the data. The study suggests that seasonally adjusted data should not be used when the unadjusted version is also available.

Keywords: X-11 filter; seasonal adjustment; seasonal unit roots (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C12 C32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 18 pages
Date: 1998-03-30
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ecm and nep-ets
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

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