Decomposing Time Series Data PDF

6 Decomposing Time Series Data Most economic time series exhibit behaviour that is repeated over time. This allows for these processes to be modelled with the aid of techniques that consider the evolution of the process over a period of time. The application of this methodology would usually refer...

6 Decomposing Time Series Data Most economic time series exhibit behaviour that is repeated over time. This allows for these processes to be modelled with the aid of techniques that consider the evolution of the process over a period of time. The application of this methodology would usually refer to the use of techniques that were developed in the time domain and include the general specification of ARIMA and state-space models. Another important phenomena of time series variables is that they may be decomposed into different periodic variations. For example, we may wish to extract the cyclical component of the time series, which may be regarded as the part that exhibits higher periodic variation than the trend. When we are looking to identify the cyclical component of economic output, we are able to conduct an investigation into the behaviour of the business cycle, which is the topic of a number of empirical macroeconomic research investigations. These decompositions may be used to describe the stylized facts of the business cycle literature, such as the persistence of economic fluctuations and correlations (or lack thereof) between the cyclical components of economic aggregates in different countries.1 It is important to note that when seeking to derive a measure of the business cycle, there are no unique periodicities that may be used to identify this particular part of the process. This is partly due to the fact that it may have a relatively vague definition (from a purely statis- tical perspective) and may be considerably different when comparing the exact definition of the business cycle in a selection of countries. In addition, most economic time series are both fluctuating and growing, which makes these types of decompositions quite challenging, particularly when trying to perform this decomposition on the data of an emerging market economy.2 In addition, these procedures may also be used to identify the output gap, which is the difference between potential and actual output. When seeking to decompose a time series into different periodic variations, we could imagine that the process is responding to various driving frequencies that are produced from linear combinations of sine and cosine functions, where each of these sine and cosine functions would represent a different frequency or amplitude. Expressed in these terms, the application 1 Burns and Mitchell (1947) conducted an early empirical study into the behaviour of business cycles in the United States, with the aid of a systematic approach where they observed that a cycle would consist of expansions occurring at about the same time in many economic activities, followed by a contraction in many of the variables. They suggested that this sequence of changes is recurrent but not periodic. Similar work is currently performed by the South African Reserve Bank, which seeks to establish the dates for economic expansions and contractions. 2 In terms of a formal definition, the business cycle refers to the regular periods of expansion and contraction in major economic aggregate variables (Burns and Mitchell 1947). We would infer that a turning point occurs when the business cycle reaches local maximum (peak) or local minimum (trough). 125 of frequency domain techniques may be regarded as a regression of periodic sine and cosines on the respective values of the time series.3 Therefore, this chapter considers the application of a few widely used methods that are used to decompose economic time series. It includes a comparison of several detrending methods that are used to extract the business cycle, including deterministic detrending, stochastic detrending and frequency filtering techniques. The appendix includes a discussion of techniques that have been developed more recently, which exist in the time-frequency domain. 6.1 Spectral analysis Consider an example where we are given three quarterly time series variables, 𝑦𝑡 , 𝑥𝑡 and 𝜐𝑡 , and the term 𝜐𝑡 ∼ i.i.d.𝒩(0, 𝜎). If it is the case that 𝑥𝑡 = 𝑦𝑡 + 𝜐𝑡 , then after regressing 𝑦𝑡 on 𝑥𝑡 , we would expect to find that the coefficient would be large and significant, provided that 𝜎 is not too large. The rationale for this is that 𝑥𝑡 contains information about 𝑦𝑡 , which is reflected by the coefficient value. As noted in the introduction, an observed time series could be viewed as the weighted sum of a number of underlying series that have different periodic behaviour. Hence, the cumulative variation in an observed time series will then be the sum of the contributions of these underlying series, which may vary in different frequencies. Spectral analysis is a tool that can be used to decompose a time series into different frequency components, where we may be interested in the respective contribution that has been made by various periodic components. When compared to the initial example that we used, a frequency domain analysis would involve a regression of a time series variable, 𝑥𝑡 , on a number of periodic components that have different frequencies to investigate whether or not information relating to each of the frequency components is contained in 𝑥𝑡. The general notion of periodicity can be made more precise by introducing some terminology. In order to define the rate at which a series oscillates, we first define a cycle as one complete period of a sine or cosine function defined over a unit time interval. We can then consider the periodic process 𝑦𝑡 = 𝐴 cos(2𝜋𝜔𝑡 + 𝜙) (6.1) for 𝑡 = 0, ±1, ±2, …, where 𝜔 is a frequency index, defined in cycles per unit time, while 𝐴 determines the height or amplitude of the function. The starting point of the cosine function is termed the phase and is denoted 𝜙. We could then introduce random variation in this time series by allowing the amplitude and phase to vary randomly. When seeking 3 R. H. Shumway and Stoffer (2011) suggest that most investigations into the cyclical component of a time series should be expressed with the aid of frequency domain techniques, which employ Fourier transformations that are driven by sine and cosine functions. 126 to conduct some form of data analysis, it is usually easier to use a trigonometric identity of this expression which may be written as,4 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑈1 cos(2𝜋𝜔𝑡) + 𝑈2 sin(2𝜋𝜔𝑡) (6.2) where 𝑈1 = 𝐴 cos 𝜙 and 𝑈2 = −𝐴 sin 𝜙 are often taken to be normally distributed random variables. In this case, the amplitude is 𝐴 = √𝑈12 + 𝑈22 and the phase is 𝜙 = tan−1 (−𝑈2 /𝑈1 ). From these facts we can show that if, and only if, in (6.1), 𝐴 and 𝜙 are independent random variables, where 𝐴2 is chi-squared with 2 degrees of freedom, and 𝜙 is uniformly distributed on [−𝜋, 𝜋], then 𝑈1 and 𝑈2 are independent, standard normal random variables. The above random process is also a function of its frequency, defined by the parameter 𝜔. The frequency is measured in cycles per unit time, or in cycles per point in the above illustration. For 𝜔 = 1, the series makes one cycle per time unit; for 𝜔 =.50, the series makes a cycle every two time units; for 𝜔 =.25, every four units, and so on. In general, for data that occur at discrete time points will need at least two points to determine a cycle, so the highest frequency of interest is 12 cycles per point. This frequency is called the folding frequency and defines the highest frequency that can be seen in discrete sampling. Higher frequencies sampled this way will appear at lower frequencies, called aliases; an example is the way a camera samples a rotating wheel on a moving vehicle in a movie, in which the wheel appears to be rotating at a different rate. Consider a generalization of (6.2) that allows mixtures of periodic series with multiple frequencies and amplitudes, 𝑞 𝑦𝑡 = ∑ [𝑈𝑘1 cos(2𝜋𝜔𝑘 𝑡) + 𝑈𝑘2 sin(2𝜋𝜔𝑘 𝑡)], (6.3) 𝑘=1 where 𝑈𝑘1 , 𝑈𝑘2 , for 𝑘 = 1, 2, … , 𝑞, are independent zero-mean random variables with vari- ances 𝜎𝑘2 , and the 𝜔𝑘 are distinct frequencies. Notice that (6.3) exhibits the process as a sum of independent components, with variance 𝜎𝑘2 for frequency 𝜔𝑘. Using the independence of the 𝑈𝑠 and the trigonometry identities, it is easy to show that the autocovariance function of the process is 𝑞 𝛾(ℎ) = ∑ 𝜎𝑘2 cos(2𝜋𝜔𝑘 ℎ), (6.4) 𝑘=1 and we note the autocovariance function is the sum of periodic components with weights proportional to the variances 𝜎𝑘2. Hence, 𝑦𝑡 is a mean-zero stationary processes with variance which exhibits the overall variance as a sum of variances of each of the component parts. To see how the spectral techniques can be used to interpret the regular frequencies in the series, consider the following four periodic time series 4 The general rules of trigonometry ensure that cos(0) = 1, sin(0) = 0 cos(−𝑥) = cos(𝑥) and sin(−𝑥) = sin(−𝑥). 127  𝑥1,𝑡 = 2 cos(2𝜋𝑡6/100) + 3 sin(2𝜋𝑡6/100) 𝑥2,𝑡 = 4 cos(2𝜋𝑡30/100) + 5 sin(2𝜋𝑡30/100) 𝑥3,𝑡 = 6 cos(2𝜋𝑡40/100) + 7 sin(2𝜋𝑡40/100) 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑥1,𝑡 + 𝑥2,𝑡 + 𝑥3,𝑡 x1 x2 6 4 2 2 0 0 -2 -2 -4 -6 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 x3 y 10 5 5 0 0 -5 -10 -5 -15 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Figure 6.1: Different frequency components Where the first three series {𝑥1,𝑡 , 𝑥2,𝑡 , 𝑥3,𝑡 }, are generated with different periodicities and amplitude, and the fourth series, 𝑦𝑡 , is the sum of the three others. The series are plotted in Figure 6.1, where we display the actual series over time. These graphs clearly see how 𝑥 − 1 displays the longer waves (as it has the low frequency component), followed by 𝑥2 and 𝑥3. The 𝑦 series is the sum of the other three series, and will therefore inherent the properties of the {𝑥1,𝑡 , 𝑥2,𝑡 , 𝑥3,𝑡 } series. Note that it is not easy to visualize the periodicities from this time series plot. The systematic sorting out of the essential frequency components in a time series, including their relative contributions, constitutes one of the main objectives of spectral analysis. One way to accomplish this objective is to regress sinusoids that vary at the different fundamental 128 frequencies on the data. This is represented by the periodogram (or sample spectral density) and may be expressed as, 2 𝑛 2 2 𝑛 2 𝑃 (𝑗/𝑛) = ∑ 𝑦𝑡 cos (2𝜋𝑡 𝑗/𝑛) + ∑ 𝑦𝑡 sin (2𝜋𝑡 𝑗/𝑛) 𝑛 𝑡=1 𝑛 𝑡=1 and may be regarded as a measure of the squared correlation of the data with sinusoids oscillating at a frequency of 𝜔𝑗 = 𝑗/𝑛, or 𝑗 cycles in 𝑛 time points. The periodogram may be computed quickly using the fast Fourier transform (FFT), and there is no need to run repeated regressions. An example of a periodogram is provided in Figure 6.2, where 𝑥 − 1 has a peak in the periodogram to the left, followed by 𝑥 − 2 and 𝑥 − 3, which has a peak that is to the right of the other two. Hence, 𝑥 − 3 is the most high frequent of the three series. Note that in this case, it is easy to visualize the three periodic components that are in 𝑦 − 𝑡, as each corresponds to the original time series component. Hence, we confirm that the 𝑦-series has inherited the periodicity of the three other 𝑥-series. x1 2000 x2 600 500 1500 400 1000 300 200 500 100 0 0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 x3 y 4000 4000 3000 3000 2000 2000 1000 1000 0 0 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 0.0 0.1 0.2 0.3 0.4 0.5 Figure 6.2: Periodogram for frequency components Note that the horizontal scale of the periodogram represents 𝑃 (𝑗/𝑛) for 𝑗 = 0, 1, … , 𝑛 − 1. These values are related to the size of 𝜔, since 129  𝑃 (6/100) = 0.06, 𝑃 (30/100) = 0.3, 𝑃 (40/100) = 0.4, Hence, where the specific frequency is present in a time series, the value for 𝑃 (𝑗/𝑛) ≠ 0 in all other cases, 𝑃 (𝑗/𝑛) = 0. Note, that in this example, these values for the respective frequencies of the components are displayed in Figure 6.1, which suggests that the peri- odogram may provide some insight into the variance components of any data. In addition, the vertical scale of the periodogram is a function of the amplitude, 𝐴, and may be used to show the relative strength of cosine-sine pairs at various frequencies in the overall behaviour of the time series. An interesting exercise would be to construct the 𝑥1 series from 𝑦𝑡 , which may be regarded as actual data. To do so we need to filter out all components that lie outside the chosen frequency band of 𝑥1. Such a filter could operate with the aid of a regression model that contains that information that relates to a particular frequency (although there are more convenient ways of going about this). Hence, cycles with frequencies corresponding to 𝑥2 and 𝑥3 would be excluded, while cycles with frequency corresponding to 𝑥1 will be maintained (i.e. can pass through the filter). X1 Actual Filtered Filtered 10 2 5 0 0 -5 -10 -2 -15 0 20 40 60 80 100 0 20 40 60 80 100 Figure 6.3: Filtered result for frequency components 130 Figure 6.3 displays the original series y and the new filtered series. From the periodogram we see that the filtered series is almost equal to the original 𝑥 − 1 series. Hence, the filter removes the high frequent components (corresponding to 𝑥2 and 𝑥3 ), and we are left with the periodic component that corresponds to the original series 𝑥1. While this example is particularly intuitive, it is worth bearing in mind that the simulated series were constructed from known cycles with a particular frequency. However, most of the data that we will encounter will consist of many frequencies, making interpretation more difficult. Still one or two frequencies usually dominate most economic time series, and this is typically what we are looking to identify. 6.2 Statistical detrending methods The various detrending methods that are used on economic data provide different estimates of the cycle, where the most appropriate transformation should be determined by the un- derlying dynamic properties of the variable that is being decomposed. If we assume that an economic time series can be decomposed into a trend 𝑔𝑡 and a cycle 𝑐𝑡 , then we could use the following expression for a time series, 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑔𝑡 + 𝑐𝑡 (6.5) where we abstract from the (irregular) noise and seasonal component. The objective of decomposing a time series would be to obtain estimates of 𝑔𝑡 and 𝑐𝑡 , from the respective detrending methods. It is worth noting that different methods that may be used to decompose a time series would usually produce different estimates of the cycle.5 The ultimate choice of the appropriate transformation of the data should therefore depend on the nature of the underlying dynamic properties of the time series. For example, one may wish to make use of a unit root tests to determine whether the trend in the data is either stochastic or a deterministic. However, such initial testing might not make it obvious which detrending or transformation method should be used, and as such, one way also wish to consider the generally accepted practices that are currently applied in the literature. In the subsequent sections of this chapter we consider the use of various techniques that may be used to obtain estimates of 𝑔𝑡 and 𝑐𝑡 , which may be used to extract a deterministic or stochastic trend. Many of these detrending methods are related, where by way of example the Hodrick-Prescott filter with a high smoothing value could be used to identify a linear trend. Similarly, the use of the Hodrick-Prescott filter with a low smoothing value, would provide an estimate of the trend that is largely equivalent to the result that would have been obtained after performing a stochastic Beveridge-Nelson decomposition. 5 See Canova (1998) amongst others. 131 6.3 Deterministic trends and filters The traditional methodology for identifying the business cycle, was developed along the premise that there is a natural growth path for the economy, which is perturbed by cyclical fluctuations that are transitory in nature. This definition suggests that the trend could be described by deterministic influences, where the trend and cycle take following form, 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑔 𝑡 + 𝑐 𝑡 𝑔𝑡̂ = 𝛼0̂ + 𝛼1̂ 𝑡 + 𝛼2̂ 𝑡2 + … (6.6) 𝑐𝑡̂ = 𝑦𝑡 + 𝑔𝑡̂ In this example, the estimated trend is defined by 𝑔𝑡̂ , which could be derived with the aid of a linear regression. The cycle would then correspond to the residual that is provided by this model. If the trend is linear, then the estimated coefficients should be, |𝛼1 | > 0 and 𝛼2 = 0. For a quadratic trend, the estimated coefficients would be |𝛼1 | > 0 and |𝛼2 | > 0. 15.0 data cycle trend 0.1 14.5 0.0 14.0 -0.1 13.5 -0.2 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Figure 6.4: Linear decomposition - SA output (1960Q1-2015Q1) 132 Figure 6.4 displays the natural logarithm of South African output, together with a linear trend in the left frame. In addition, the deviation from the linear trend, which would rep- resent the cycle is provided in the right frame. The graph of the cycle would suggest that during the 1970s and 1980s, South Africa experienced a protracted expansionary period, which is not necessarily consistent with economic events. It is also worth noting that pro- ductivity growth has not been perfectly log-linear (i.e. constant growth rate) and far from smooth, which would imply that the use of a linear trend may be inappropriate (from a theoretic perspective). In addition, there are several structural breaks such as the oil price shock in 1973/1974 and the more recent Global Financial Crisis, which would influence the slope and level of the linear regression. To allow for a possible structural break in the trend, we could estimate, 𝑔𝑡̂ = 𝛼0̂ + 𝛼1̂ 𝑡 + 𝛼2̂ 𝐷𝑆𝑡 (𝑗) + 𝛼3̂ 𝐷𝐿𝑡 (𝑘) + … where 𝐷𝑆𝑡 (𝑗) and 𝐷𝐿𝑡 (𝑘) are dummy variables that capture the change in the slope or the level of the trend in periods 𝑗 and 𝑘, respectively. These dummy variables would then be constructed as 𝐷𝑆𝑡 (𝑗) = 𝑡 − 𝑗 and 𝐷𝐿𝑡 (𝑘) = 1, if 𝑡 > 𝑗 or 𝑡 > 𝑘, while it would be zero otherwise. In both of these cases one would need to have a priori knowledge about the date for such a break. In this case the identification of the date of the structural break in the component of the time series that is yet to be identified could be problematic, particularly where the series has more than one date for a structural break. In addition, if the time series is integrated of an order that is greater than zero, the application of a deterministic detrending procedure would introduce a spurious cycle, which would make it susceptible to the critique of C. R. Nelson and King (1981). 6.4 Stochastic trends and filters Filters may be used to transform a particular time series into various other time series. In this sense, we could use a linear filter to derive a new variables that may represent the trend and the cycle. Using a simple example, where 𝑔𝑡 is the result of a moving-average filter for the trend, we can apply the moving-average filter to the observed variable, 𝑦𝑡 , 𝑛 𝑔𝑡 = ∑ 𝜔𝑗 𝑦𝑡−𝑗 𝑗=−𝑚 where 𝑚 and 𝑛 are positive integers and 𝜔𝑗 are the weights that are applied to past and/or future values of 𝑦𝑡. Alternatively, we could make use of the 𝐺(𝐿) polynomial in the expres- sion 𝑛 𝐺(𝐿) = ∑ 𝜔𝑗 𝐿𝑗 𝑗=−𝑚 133 where 𝐿 is defined so that 𝐿𝑗 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑦𝑡−𝑗 for positive and negative values for 𝑗. In most economic applications we focus our attention on the use of symmetric moving averages, where the weights are such that 𝜔𝑗 = 𝜔−𝑗. After defining the trend component with the aid of the above expressions, the cyclical component is then determined by taking the difference of the observed value of 𝑦𝑡 from the trend component, 𝑐𝑡 = [1 − 𝐺(𝐿)]𝑦𝑡 ≡ 𝐶(𝐿)𝑦𝑡 where 𝐶(𝐿) and 𝐺(𝐿) may be termed linear filters. In most instances, the weights are 𝑛 chosen to add up to one, ∑𝑗=−𝑚 𝑐𝑗 = 1, which would ensure that it would be possible to reconstitute the observed values of 𝑦𝑡 by combining the trend and the cyclical components. For example, the moving-average filter with a weight of 1/5 for each component in the moving window of five observations, may be derived with the aid of the expression, 1 2 1 𝑔𝑡 = ∑ 𝑦 = (𝑦 + 𝑦𝑡−1 + 𝑦𝑡 + 𝑦𝑡+1 + 𝑦𝑡+2 ) 5 𝑗=−2 𝑡 5 𝑡−2 6.4.1 Hodrick-Prescott filter Hodrick and Prescott (1980) provide details of a filter that constitutes the most widely used technique for extracting business cycles from economic variables.6 This filter identifies an estimate of the stochastic trend, 𝑔𝑡̂ , that is not correlated with the cycle. In essence, this technique seeks to identify the stochastic trend as the components of the time series that exhibit behaviour that are below that of the business cycle frequency. The cycle would then include all the information that relates to those components that are of a higher frequency. The filter for the identification of the trend can be obtained as the solution to the following minimisation problem, 𝑇 2 2 min ∑ [(𝑦𝑡 − 𝑔𝑡 ) + 𝜆{ (𝑔𝑡+1 − 𝑔𝑡 ) − (𝑔𝑡 − 𝑔𝑡−1 ) } ] (6.7) 𝑔𝑡 𝑡=1 The first term (𝑦𝑡 − 𝑔𝑡 ), is a penalty that is imposed for deviations in the trend from the observed time series. The second component (𝑔𝑡+1 − 𝑔𝑡 ) − (𝑔𝑡 − 𝑔𝑡−1 ) is the acceleration in the growth component and is minimised when there is no variability in the trend. The 𝜆 parameter is treated as a constant and is called the smoothing parameter, which increases the penalty for the acceleration in the growth component. Hence, if 𝜆 approaches infinity, the minima is achieved when the variability in the trend is zero, and the trend is perfectly log-linear. On the other hand, a small value for 𝜆 will allow significant variation 6 This article was published as Hodrick and Prescott (1997). 134 in the trend, such that if 𝜆 = 0, there will be no cycle as the trend will match the observed time series. Since the smoothness of the trend, will be sensitive to the value of 𝜆, a justification for the choice of 𝜆 should be made. Hodrick and Prescott (1980) argued that 𝜆 = 1600 is a reasonable choice for quarterly data given the characteristics of the U.S. data, and many subsequent studies have used this value. It may be shown that this value is equivalent to a cycle length of about 9.8 years. The choice of this value is the subject of much critique, as the results that are produced from filters that use different values of 𝜆 would produce results that may differ. In addition, while this may (or may not) be an appropriate value for the decomposition of output, it will not necessarily be a reasonable choice for other variables, or for decomposing output of other countries. Another concern with the use of this technique (which is common to most filters) is the end-of-sample problem, as the estimates of the trend will converge on the first and last observations of the time series. This would imply that the filter produces relatively small values for the cycle at the beginning and end of the estimation period. Therefore, the trend would be more responsive to transitory shocks at the end of sample, which may be problematic during periods where the economy is at the peak or trough of a cycle.7 King and Rebelo (1993) note that this particular filter contains both forward and backward differences and as a result, the end of sample properties are poor when you do not have an observation for 𝑡 + 1 or 𝑡 − 1. In addition, they also note that these forward and backward looking components would ensure that the Hodrick-Prescott (HP) filter is able to render a stationary process from any integrated series up to fourth order. Furthermore, although the method is stochastic in nature, one should note that the smoothness of the stochastic trend component (i.e. 𝜆) has to be specified a priori. In contrast with these critiques, the advantage of this filter is that the minimization problem has a unique solution, and the filtered series, 𝑔𝑡 , has the same length as the original series, 𝑦𝑡. These are considered to be relatively important considerations when deciding upon an appropriate filter. In addition, this technique is easy to apply although one should always note that when applied to a random walk (or any integrated series), it can generate business cycle periodicity, even if none is present in the original data (Andrew C. Harvey and Jaeger (1993) and King and Rebelo (1993)). Figure 6.5 displays the natural logarithm of South African output along with the fitted trend that makes use of the HP-method with 𝜆 = 1600, in the left frame. The right frame displays the cycle constructed as the deviation from the HP-trend. The cycle would appear to resemble what we know of the South African business cycle, with the period of protracted growth during the “great moderation” and the recession during the global financial crisis that started towards the end of 2007. 7 To address the end-of-sample problem, certain researchers have sought to augment the dataset of observed time series with forecasts of the respective variable. 135 15.0 data HPcycle HPtrend 0.04 14.5 0.02 0.00 14.0 -0.02 13.5 -0.04 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Figure 6.5: HP filter - SA output (1960Q1-2015Q1) 136 6.4.2 Band pass filters Another popular method that has been used to measure business cycles is the band pass (BP) filter, which were introduced by Baxter and King (1999) and L. Christiano and Fitzgerald (2003). The filter differs to those that have been discussed in that it seeks to identify specific (business cycle) components that correspond to the chosen frequency band that has an upper and lower limit. When applying this filter to the data, one has to determine the periodicity of the business cycles that one wants to extract. As such, the band pass filter is usually expressed within the frequency domain approach to time series analysis. The basic idea behind the frequency domain approach is that any time series could be represented as a combination of sine and cosine functions. Therefore, consider a time series that may be generated from the function, 𝑦𝑡 = 𝐴 cos(2𝜋𝜔𝑡) (6.8) Where 𝐴 is the amplitude (height) of the cycle, 𝜔 is the frequency of oscillation (the number of occurrences of a repeating event per time) and 𝑡 is usual the time. The value 2𝜋 is a constant that measures the period of the cycles. Hence, if 𝑦𝑡 = 𝐴 cos(2𝜋𝑡), then we will observe one cycle over the sample period that is under investigation. After increasing 𝜔, we will increase the number of cycles that may be observed. 2 0 −2 0 20 40 60 80 100 5 0 −5 0 20 40 60 80 100 Figure 6.6: Artificial Data 137 Figure 6.6 provides an example of two frequency components that were produced for 100 6 observations. The top frame was produced with 2 cos(2𝜋 100 𝑡) and the bottom frame was 40 produced with 2 cos(6𝜋 100 𝑡). When comparing these results, we note that after increasing the amplitude that is provided by 𝐴, the height of the cycles increases by three. There is also a large difference regarding the frequency of oscillations (i.e. how often the periodic cycles repeat themselves). In the top frame (where 𝜔 = 6), we can count six cycles over the time span of 100 (i.e. six cycles between 0 and 2𝜋), while there are forty cycles over a time span of 100 in the bottom panel (where 𝜔 = 40). We say that a cycle which oscillates more exhibits a higher frequency, while a cycle that oscillates less has lower frequency. Hence, an intuitive measure of frequency is the amount of time that elapses per cycle, which we will call 𝜆. It may be calculated as, 𝜆 = 2𝜋/𝜔 If we are working with quarterly data, then to find 𝜔 that corresponds to a cycle length of 1.5 years (that is, a high frequency cycle), we set 𝜆 = 6 quarters per cycle and solve for 6 = 2𝜋/𝜔𝐻 , such that 𝜔𝐻 = 2𝜋/6 = 𝜋/3 Similarly, the frequency corresponding to a low-frequency cycle length of 8 years would be given by 𝜔𝐿 = 2𝜋/32 = 𝜋/16 Inspired by the National Bureau of Economic Research (NBER) business cycle chronology, Baxter and King (1999) wanted to decompose a time series into three periodic components, which comprised of the trend, cycle, and irregular fluctuations. Business cycles were defined as periodic components whose frequencies lie between 1.5 and 8 years per cycle. Periodic components with lengths that were longer than eight years were identified with the trend, and those that had periodic components of less than one and a half years were identified with the irregular component. To construct the cyclical component we need to weight the periodic components according to the Baxter and King definition, and then integrate across all frequencies. If we define the band pass filter as 𝐵(𝜔) then the chosen frequencies will imply the following restrictions on the band filter, 𝐵(𝜔) = 1 for 𝜔 ∈ [𝜋/16, 𝜋/3] or [−𝜋/3, −𝜋/16 = 0 otherwise Hence, the interval 𝐵(𝜔) = [𝜋/16, 𝜋/3] can be interpreted as business cycle frequencies. Any periodic components with a frequency within this interval can pass through the filter 138 unchanged, as the filter multiplies them with one. The interval [0, 𝜋/16] would then corre- spond to the trend and [𝜋/3, 𝜋] would define the irregular fluctuations. Periodic components with a frequency that lies within these intervals are eliminated, since they are multiplied by zero. 15.0 data BPcycle BPtrend 0.04 14.5 0.02 0.00 14.0 -0.02 13.5 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Figure 6.7: BP filter - SA output (1960Q1-2015Q1) Figure 6.7 displays the filtered South African output using the Baxter and King (1993) band pass filter. Note that the cyclical resembles the HP cycle, except that it is much smoother. This smoothness follows from the fact that we have filtered out the high frequency noise. That is, cycles of a periodicity of less than one and a half years have been removed. A useful feature of the Baxter and King band pass filter is that it can easily be changed to accommodate data sampled at different frequencies (say monthly or yearly), by changing 𝜔𝐿 and 𝜔𝐻. While Baxter and King (1993) favour a three-part decomposition, other economists prefer a two-part classification in which the highest frequencies also count as part of the business cycle. Consider the following filter: 139  𝐻(𝜔) = 1 for 𝜔 ∈ [𝜋/16, 𝜋]𝑜𝑟[-𝜋, −𝜋/16] = 0 otherwise The trend component is still defined in terms of fluctuations lasting more than eight years, but the cyclical component now consists of all oscillation lasting eight years or less. This is known as a high-pass filter because it passes all of the frequencies that are higher than some pre-specified value, while it eliminates everything else. A drawback of this filter is that one has to decide on the preferred frequencies for the cycles. This may not always be known in advance and it may not be consistent over the entire sample. Furthermore, the filter is subject to the end-of-sample problem as was the case with the HP-filter. 6.5 Beveridge-Nelson Decomposition Many economic time series are integrated of the first-order, where the first difference of a process can be represented as a stationary process that has an autoregressive moving- average form. To decompose such a nonstationary series into a permanent and a transitory component one could make use of the decomposition, that is due to Beveridge and Nelson (1981). In this case, the permanent component is assumed to follow a random walk with drift, and the transitory component is a stationary process with zero mean (that is perfectly correlated with the permanent component). If we let 𝑦𝑡 be integrated of first-order, then the first difference, Δ𝑦𝑡 , is stationary. Where we assume that the stationary component has the following moving-average representation, (1 − 𝐿)𝑦𝑡 = Δ𝑦𝑡 = 𝜇 + 𝐵(𝐿)𝜀𝑡 (6.9) To derive estimates for this decomposition, we would firstly define the polynomial, 𝐵∗ (𝐿) = (1 − 𝐿)−1 [𝐵(𝐿) − 𝐵(1)] ∞ where 𝐵(1) = ∑ 𝐵𝑠. Rewriting this polynomial in terms of 𝐵(𝐿), provides 𝑠=0 𝐵(𝐿) = [𝐵(1) + (1 − 𝐿)𝐵∗ (𝐿)] and substituting into (6.9) yields the following expression, Δ𝑦𝑡 = 𝜇 + 𝐵(𝐿)𝜀𝑡 = 𝜇 + [𝐵(1) + (1 − 𝐿)𝐵∗ (𝐿)]𝜀𝑡 (6.10) For the decomposition, 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑔𝑡 + 𝑐𝑡 , it follows that Δ𝑦𝑡 = Δ𝑔𝑡 +Δ𝑐𝑡. Using this together with equation (6.10), provides an expression for the change in the trend component of 𝑦𝑡 , 140  Δ𝑔𝑡 = 𝜇 + 𝐵(1)𝜀𝑡 (6.11) and the change in the cyclical component of 𝑦𝑡 is then provided by Δ𝑐𝑡 = (1 − 𝐿)𝐵∗ (𝐿)𝜀𝑡 From equation (6.11) we see that the trend follows a random walk with drift. This expression can be solved to yield, 𝑡 𝑔𝑡 = 𝑔0 + 𝜇𝑡 + 𝐵(1)∑𝜀𝑠 (6.12) 𝑠=1 As such, the trend consist of both a deterministic term 𝑔0 + 𝜇𝑡 and a stochastic term 𝑡 𝐵(1)∑𝜀𝑠 𝑠=1 For 𝐵(1) = 0, the trend reduces to a deterministic case, where for 𝐵(1) ≠ 0, the stochastic part indicates the long-run impact of a shock 𝜀𝑡 on the level of 𝑦𝑡. The cyclical component is stationary and is given by 𝑐𝑡 = 𝐵∗ (𝐿)𝜀𝑡 = (1 − 𝐿)−1 [𝐵(𝐿) − 𝐵(1)]𝜀𝑡 (6.13) Beveridge and Nelson (1981) are able to show that the stochastic trend defined in equation (6.12) could also be interpreted as the long-term forecast of the series adjusted for the mean rate of change. In addition, the cycle that is defined in equation (6.13) as the stationary process that reflects the deviations of the trend from the observed series. This decomposition implies that an innovation in 𝑔𝑡 and 𝑐𝑡 are proportional to 𝜀𝑡. Hence they will be perfectly correlated and the permanent component will have the same drift, 𝜇, as the observed series. Further, the variance of the innovations in the permanent component, (𝐵(𝐿)𝜎2 ) will be larger (smaller) than the variance of the innovations in the observed data 𝑦𝑡 , if 𝐵(1) is larger (smaller) than one. Note also that when the permanent component is restricted to be a random walk with drift, 𝐵0 = 1 and all the 𝐵𝑖 = 0 for 𝑖 > 0, the variance of the permanent component equals the variance in the observed series, and the cyclical component will be zero for all 𝑡. To be able to identify the cyclical and permanent component, one must specify models that can be written as the stationary moving average processes. There are two stages involved 141 in this trend-cycle decomposition. First an ARIMA model (𝑝, 𝑑, 𝑞) has to be estimated to the series 𝑦𝑡 where 𝑝 is the number of AR lags, 𝑑 is the number of differencing and 𝑞 is the number of MA lags. Then 𝑐𝑡 has to be numerically estimated. To see how one can estimate the Beveridge-Nelson (BN) decomposition in practice, assume that an AR(1) process is responsible for the growth rate of output, Δ𝑦𝑡 = 𝜙Δ𝑦𝑡−1 + 𝜀𝑡 , where we have ignored the constant term. Assuming 𝜙 < 1, the AR(1) process can be written in terms of the infinite MA(∞) process where we find 𝐵(𝐿), 𝐵(1) and 𝐵∗ (𝐿) from, 1 𝐵(𝐿) = 1 − 𝜙𝐿 1 𝐵(1) = 1−𝜙 𝜙 𝐵∗ (𝐿) = (1 − 𝐿)−1 [𝐵(𝐿) − 𝐵(1)] = (1 − 𝜙)(1 − 𝜙𝐿) Solving in terms of 𝑦𝑡 , using equation (6.10), but now without a constant, provides us with 𝑦𝑡 = (1 − 𝐿)−1 [𝐵(1) + (1 − 𝐿)𝐵∗ (𝐿)]𝜀𝑡 This can be rewritten as, 𝑦𝑡 = 𝐵(1)(1 − 𝐿)−1 𝜀𝑡 + (1 − 𝐿)−1 [𝐵(𝐿) − 𝐵(1)]𝜀𝑡 Substituting in for the AR(1) solution derived above, we have 𝑦𝑡 = 𝑔 𝑡 + 𝑐 𝑡 ⇓ 1 −𝜙 𝑦𝑡 = (1 − 𝐿)−1 𝜀𝑡 + 𝜀 1−𝜙 (1 − 𝜙𝐿)(1 − 𝜙) 𝑡 A quick computational approach was suggested by Cuddington and Winters (1987), where 𝑔𝑡 is calculated directly from the expression in (6.12) by estimating 𝐵(1) from a truncated Wold representation of Δ𝑦𝑡. The obvious difficulty is that the initial value of 𝑔𝑡 in (6.12) is known, so the procedure is only correct up to an additive factor. The advantage of Beveridge-Nelson is that it is appropriate for the extraction of cycles when a series is difference-stationary. Moreover, it may be used one those series that not only contain a unit root, but are also highly volatile. One disadvantage, however, is that it is rather time-consuming, as one has to choose between different ARMA models. In addition, Cochrane (1988) notes that these different ARMA specifications may give very different trend-cycle decompositions, where low-order ARMA models will systematically overestimate the random walk component in the trend. hence, the parameter estimates will match the short-run behaviour and misrepresent the long-run 142 behaviour. As the innovative variance of the random walk is a property of the very long-run behaviour of the series, one should therefore estimate higher-order models that adequately capture this long-run behaviour. Finally, misrepresenting an 𝐼(2) process as an 𝐼(1) may be problematic in this setting. 6.6 Stylized facts of business cycles The description of the aggregate fluctuations in a set of economic variables is an important exercise as it establishes the stylized facts of the business cycles in a particular country. However, as the cycles will not be invariant to the method that is used to describe them, the results should be tested against alternative trend specifications. Figure 6.8 compares the cycles that are derived from gross domestic product in South Africa. These were obtained from the different de-trending methods that were presented above. The results suggest that a linear filter provides peculiar results that do not agree with what we know of economic events. The stochastic filters suggest a fairly similar pattern for the business cycles although there are parts where the differences are more pronounced. The Beveridge-Nelson decomposition would appear to provide slightly divergent results and as such it would be important to compare how these results compare to the official dating procedure for recessions, which is provided by the South African Reserve Bank. In addition to this comparison, it is usually a good idea to consider the stylized facts that relate to the cycles of other macroeconomic aggregates, such as: GDP, consumption (Cons), exports (Exp), import (Imp), productivity (Prod), investment (Invest) and employment (EMP). These should be compared to our knowledge of economic events and where relevant, we should also consider the correlation between these measures, as well as whether or not they are leading or lagging one another. This will help us to judge the plausibility of using a particular technique to decompose the business cycle. 6.7 Conclusion Many economic and financial applications make use of decompositions for nonstationary time series, which are transformed into a permanent and a transitory component. To com- plete this task one could make use of a linear filter for the trend, which may be perturbed by transitory cyclical fluctuations. alternatively one could make use of a Hodrick-Prescott filter, which is the most popular method for extracting extracting business cycles. The filter extracts a stochastic trend which for a given value of the parameter 𝜆. This trend moves smoothly over time and in uncorrelated with the cycle. It is worth noting that the results from this filter are not robust to changes in the value of the smoothness parameter. Another popular method that is used to measure the business cycle is that of the band pass filter. The filter removes all the components in a series, except for those that correspond to the chosen frequency band. In the Beveridge-Nelson decomposition, the permanent component is shown to be a random walk with drift, and the transitory component is stationary pro- cess with zero mean, which is perfectly correlated with the permanent component. When 143  linear hp-filter bp-filter cf-filter bn-decomp 0.1 0.0 -0.1 -0.2 1960 1970 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Figure 6.8: Business Cycles - SA output (1960Q1-2015Q1) 144 applying these methods, one should interrogate the results for robustness by applying many alternative filters when analysing business cycles. Then lastly, it is perhaps worth noting that a filtered time series is usually stationary but somewhat persistent; which is the case for the HP filtered measure of the output-gap. Given these properties of the data, one would usually be able to generate reasonable forecasts for output-gap (particularly when compared to the forecast for output growth, which is less persistent). However, one may wish to suggest that a forecast for the output-gap is less useful than a forecast for output growth and the end-of-sample problem that is encountered with the HP filter would detract further from the usefulness of the forecast for the output- gap. However, this would in no way prevent one from using the measure of the output gap in a multivariate model that is concerned with forecasting some other variable (such as inflation). 6.8 Appendix: Wavelet decompositions Most of the commonly used decompositions in economics, such as those that were designed by Hodrick and Prescott (1997), Baxter and King (1999) and L. Christiano and Fitzgerald (2003), seek to approximate ideal filters, where one is able to identify the trend, cycle and noise components that are located at different periodicities. When applying these techniques within the frequency domain, one would effectively decompose a time series with a number of sine and cosine functions, which define the rate at which the time series oscillates. It is important to note, that this transformation results in the loss of all time-based information, where it is assumed that the periodicity of all the components are consistent throughout the entire sample. To allow for changes in the periodicity of the respective components, Gabor (1946) developed the Short-Time Fourier Transform (STFT) technique, which involves applying a number of Fourier transforms to different subsamples of the data. Gencay, Selcuk, and Whitcher (2010) refer to the subsample as a data window, where the technique involves sliding the window across the time series and taking a Fourier transform of each subsample. Although this technique would provide potentially useful information on the timing of an event that may have arisen at a particular frequency, it is limited in that the precision of the analysis is affected by the size of the subsample. For instance, one would need a large subsample to identify changes that arise at a low frequency, and small subsamples to identify changes in the higher frequency components. To overcome the limitations of the above frequency domain techniques, wavelet transforma- tions were developed to capture features of time-series data across a wide range of frequencies that may arise at different points in time. This technique makes use of a number of wavelet functions that are stretched and shifted to describe features that are localised in frequency and time. For example, the wavelet function would be expanded over a relatively long pe- riod of time when identifying low-frequency events, and it would be relatively narrow when 145 describing high frequency events.8 After shifting all of these wavelet functions that have different amplitudes over the entire sample of data, one is able to associate the components with specific time horizons that occur at different locations in time. Early work with wavelet functions dates back to Haar (1910), who used a number of square- wave functions to decompose time-series data. Unfortunately, the properties of square-wave functions were found to be limited, and as such, a number of alternatives were developed, including those that are discussed in Grossmann and Morlet (1984) and Daubechies (1992).9 For the computation of these transformations, which make use of various wavelet functions at different scales, most studies currently employ the multiresolution decomposition of Mallat (1989) and Strang and Nguyen (1996). To describe the use of this technique, one could allow for the case where a variable is composed of a trend and a number of higher-frequency components. In this instance, the trend may be represented by a father wavelet, 𝜙(𝑡), while the mother wavelets, 𝜓(𝑡), are used to describe information at lower scales (i.e. higher frequencies). Using an orthogonal wavelet transformation, one could then describe variable 𝑦𝑡 as 𝐽 𝑦𝑡 = ∑ 𝑠0,𝑘 𝜙0,𝑘 (𝑡) + ∑ ∑ 𝑑𝑗,𝑘 𝜓𝑗,𝑘 (𝑡) , 𝑘 𝑗=0 𝑘 where 𝐽 refers to the number of scales, and 𝑘 refers to the location of the wavelet in time. The $ s_{0,k}$ coefficients are termed smooth coefficients, since they represent the trend, and the 𝑑𝑗,𝑘 coefficients are termed the detailed coefficients, since they represent finer details in the data. The mother wavelet functions, 𝜓1,𝑘 (𝑡), … , 𝜓𝐽,𝑘 (𝑡), are then generated by shifts in the location of the wavelet in time and scale, such that 𝑡 − 2𝑗 𝑘 𝜓𝑗,𝑘 (𝑡) = 2−𝑗/2 𝜓 ( ) , 𝑗 = 1, … , 𝐽 , 2𝑗 where the shift parameter is represented by 2𝑗 𝑘 and the scale parameter is 2𝑗. This choice of dyadic scaling factors is arbitrary but efficient (Daubechies 1992). As depicted in the daublet wavelet functions in Figure 6.9 , smaller values of 𝑗 (which produce a smaller scale parameter 2𝑗 ), would provide the relatively tall and narrow wavelet function on the left. For larger values of 𝑗, the wavelet function is more spread out and of lower amplitude. In addition, after shifting this function by one period, we produce the function that is depicted on the right of Figure 6.9. Early applications of wavelet methods in economics include the work of Ramsey and Zhang (1997), which made use of a wavelet decomposition of exchange rate data to describe the distribution of this data at different frequencies. In addition, Ramsey and Lampart (1998a) 8 The wavelets literature refers to the use of scales rather than frequency bands, where the highest scale refers to the lowest frequency and vice versa. 9 See, Hubbard (1998) and Heil and Walnut (2006) for a detailed account of the history of wavelet analysis. 146 0.5 0.5 0 0 -0.5 -0.5 -5 0 5 10 15 20 -5 0 5 10 15 20 time time Figure 6.9: Daublet (4) wavelet functions - 𝜓1,0 (𝑡) and 𝜓2,1 (𝑡) made use of a decomposition of money and income data to describe the relationship between these variables at different frequencies, while Ramsey and Lampart (1998b) considered the relationship between income and expenditure (i.e. permanent income hypothesis) at different time scales.10 Modern wavelet functions may take various forms that could be summarized by smoothed functions, that may be used to decompose a series into trend and cycle, peaked functions, that may be used to identify the peak of cycle, or square functions, that are used to iden- tify structural breaks. For the purposes of identifying the business cycle one would use smoothed functions that include daublets, coiflets and symlets. There are also a number of transformations that may be used. Many studies make use of a maximum overlap discrete wavelet transform (MODWT), which does not restrict the sample size to a multiple of 2𝑗. In addition, this technique is also able to preserve the phase properties of the data, where it can match the smoothed terms to the underlying data. Figure 6.10 and Figure 6.11 contain the results of a decomposition that was applied to South African Consumer Price inflation, where we are interested in removing the noise from the data. In this example, we make use of various smoothed wavelet functions that include daublets 3-4. We also make use of both three scales, where 𝐽 is set at 3.11 The decompositions at various different scales are contained in Figure 6.10, where we note that there is significant change in the periodicity of the variables over time. The results of the filtered trend are contained in Figure 6.11, which could be used as a measure of core inflation, as in Du\;Plessis, Du\;Rand, and Kotzé (2015). 10 See Ramsey (2002), Schleicher (2002) and Crowley (2007) for a more general overview of the use of these methods in economics. 11 In this study we perform a simple wavelet analysis that seeks to identify the trend, or father wavelet. Note that these methods could also be used to remove noise from each of the respective scales, should they extend over a particular threshold, before each of the signals is combined to represent the de-noised signal. 147 w1 w2 w3 v3 actual 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Figure 6.10: Daublet (4) wavelet decomposition - South African inflation 148  0.20 0.15 inf 0.10 0.05 0.00 1980 1990 2000 2010 2020 Time Figure 6.11: Daublet (4) wavelet decomposition - South African inflation 149 To conclude this section, there are a number of advantages that are inherent in the appli- cation of wavelet decompositions, as they can be applied to data of any integration order and allow for changes in the distribution of the frequency over time. In addition, they have many of the benefits that are associated with spectral techniques, but they do not lose the time support, which is useful when seeking to identify changes in the process at different frequencies. Then lastly, as one is able to include a number of bands, which are additive, one is able to focus attention on many possible periodic components. 150