Econometrica

Journal Of The Econometric Society

An International Society for the Advancement of Economic
Theory in its Relation to Statistics and Mathematics

Edited by: Guido W. Imbens • Print ISSN: 0012-9682 • Online ISSN: 1468-0262

Econometrica: Jan, 1992, Volume 60, Issue 1

The Relative Importance of Permanent and Transitory Components: Identification and Some Theoretical Bounds

https://doi.org/0012-9682(199201)60:1<107:TRIOPA>2.0.CO;2-5
p. 107-118

Danny Quah

Much macroeconometric discussion has recently emphasized the economic significance of the size of the permanent component in GNP. Consequently, a large literature has developed that tries to estimate this magnitude--measured, essentially, as the spectral density of increments in GNP at frequency zero. This paper shows that unless the permanent component is a random walk this attention has been misplaced: in general, that quantity does not identify the magnitude of the permanent component. Further, by developing bounds on reasonable measures of this magnitude, the paper shows that a random walk specification is biased towards establishing the permanent component as important.


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