Clustering Macroeconomic Variables
Perricone Chiara
CEIS Research Paper
Many papers have highlighted that some macroeconomic time series present
structural instability. The causes of these remarkable changes in the reduced form
properties of the macroeconomy is a debated argument. In literature this issue is
handled with three main econometric methodologies: structural breaks, regime-
switching and time-varying parameters (TVP). Nevertheless all these approaches
need some ex ante structure in order to model the change. Based on the Recurrent
Chinese Restaurant Process, I have specified a model for an autoregressive process
and estimated via particle filter using a conjugate prior, which applied the idea of
evolutionary cluster to the study of the instability in output and inflation for US
after War World II. This procedure displays some advantages, in particular does
not require a strong ex ante structure in order to neither detect the breaks nor
manage the evolution of parameters. The application of the cluster procedure to
GDP growth and inflation rate for US from 1957 to 2011 shows a good ability in
fit the data, moreover it produces a clusterization of the time series that could be
interpreted in terms of economic history and it is able to recover key data features
without making restrictive assumptions, as in âone-breakâ or TVP models.
Number: 283
JEL codes: C18, C22, C51, E17
Volume: 11
Issue: 10
Date: Tuesday, June 11, 2013
Revision Date: Tuesday, June 11, 2013