Examining the asymmetric behaviour of macroeconomic aggregates in Asian economies

The goal of this paper is to test for asymmetric behaviour of macroeconomic aggregates for three Asian economies; namely, Malaysia, Hong Kong and Korea. Whether macroeconomic aggregates can be characterised as asymmetric has important implications for policy-making and econometric modelling including forecasting. We examine two forms of asymmetries; specifically deepness, which arises when a detrended time series contains an asymmetric distribution, and steepness, which arises when the first difference of a series contains an asymmetric distribution. Overall, our findings suggest that for all three countries, the bulk of the series display asymmetry behaviour.

Understanding asymmetries in macroeconomic aggregates : the case of Singapore

For robust policymaking and econometric modelling, it is essential to know whether macroeconomic aggregates contain asymmetric behaviour. The aim of this note is to investigate asymmetries in Singapore's macroeconomic aggregates using the Randles et al. (1980) Triples test. We examine both deepness and steepness asymmetries, and find that for Consumer Price Index (CPI) and unemployment rate there is evidence for deepness asymmetry. On the basis of this finding, we caution policymakers.

Are health expenditures and GDP characterized by asymmetric behaviour? Evidence from 11 OECD countries

In this article, we examine whether per-capita health expenditures and per-capita GDP for 11 OECD countries can be characterized by asymmetric behaviour. We achieve this goal by using the nonparametric Triples test suggested by Randles et al. (1980). We examine two forms of asymmetries, namely deepness and steepness. Our main finding is that for 6 out of 11 countries, namely for the USA, the UK, Japan, Spain, Finland and Iceland, either per-capita health expenditures or per-capita GDP are characterized by asymmetric behaviour. This finding to some extent casts doubt on those studies that model the relationship between health and GDP using unit-root and cointegration tests that assume symmetric disturbances.