Signaling NBER Turning Points: A Sequential Approach

The dates of U.S. business cycle are reported by NBER with a considerable delay, so

an early notion of turning points is of particular interest. This paper proposes a novel

sequential approach designed for timely signaling these turning points using the time series

of coincident economic indicators. The approach exhibits a range of theoretical optimality

properties for early signaling, moreover, it is transparent and easy to implement. The

empirical study evaluates the signaling ability of the proposed methodology.

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