Calling Recessions in Real Time

James Hamilton

No 16162, NBER Working Papers from National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc

Abstract: This paper surveys efforts to automate the dating of business cycle turning points. Doing this on a real time, out-of-sample basis is a bigger challenge than many academics might presume due to factors such as data revisions and changes in economic relationships over time. The paper stresses the value of both simulated real-time analysis-- looking at what the inference of a proposed model would have been using data as they were actually released at the time-- and actual real-time analysis, in which a researcher stakes his or her reputation on publicly using the model to generate out-of-sample, real-time predictions. The immediate publication capabilities of the internet make the latter a realistic option for researchers today, and many are taking advantage of it. The paper reviews a number of approaches to dating business cycle turning points and emphasizes the fundamental trade-off between parsimony-- trying to keep the model as simple and robust as possible-- and making full use of available information. Different approaches have different advantages, and the paper concludes that there may be gains from combining the best features of several different approaches.

JEL-codes: E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2010-07
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-cba, nep-ecm, nep-ets and nep-mac
Note: EFG
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (13)

Published as Hamilton, James D., 2011. "Calling recessions in real time," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(4), pages 1006-1026, October.

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Journal Article: Calling recessions in real time (2011)
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