Volume 1, Number 1


 

Dating the South African business cycle
Biesmans, F. and Majetti, R.

In this paper, we focus on setting a chronology for the South African business cycle, founded on the detection of turning points in the aggregate activity. First, we answer to the methodological question of how to determine economic cycles: in this case we focus on classical business cycles and growth cycles. Secondly, we develop a non-parametric dating algorithm applied to the real GDP series for the period, 1960-2011: implementing this algorithm yields a periodisation based on six complete cycles. Thirdly, we discuss the main specificities of the South African case.

Keywords: Bry-Boschan algorithms, classical business cycle, cyclical fluctuations, growth cycles, recessions, turning points