On a definition of trend

Artur Silva Lopes ()

EconStor Preprints from ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics

Abstract: Several reasons explain the absence of a precise, complete and widely accepted definition of trend for economic time series, and the existence of two major disparate models is one of the most important. A recent operational proposal tried to overcome this difficulty resorting to a statistical test with good asymptotic properties against both those alternatives. However, this proposal may be criticized because it rests on a tool for inductive, not deductive, inference. Besides criticizing this recent definition, drawing heavily on previous ones, the paper provides a new general proposal, more complete, containing several necessary but no sufficient condition(s). A version specialized to certain macroeconomic time series is also presented and discussed.

Keywords: trend; trend-cycle decomposition; macroeconomy; statistical testing (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: B41 C12 C18 C22 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2026
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ets
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Related works:
Working Paper: On a Definition of Trend (2025)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:esprep:344307

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