Abstract
When observations are taken at regular intervals within a year (by month or by quarter), most economic time series are likely to exhibit some degree of seasonal variation. An obvious example, known to everyone, is the existence of a ‘high’ and ‘low’ season for air transportation and other recreational activities. Perhaps less obvious, but equally important, is the presence of a seasonal pattern in most economic aggregates such as the index of production, price indices, the unemployment rate and so on.
This chapter was originally published in The New Palgrave: A Dictionary of Economics, 1st edition, 1987. Edited by John Eatwell, Murray Milgate and Peter Newman
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Bibliography
Dagum, E.B. 1978. Modelling, forecasting and seasonally adjusting economic time series with the X-11-ARIMA method. The Statistician 27(3,4): 203–216.
Lovell, M.C. 1963. Seasonal adjustment of economic time series and multiple regression analysis. Journal of the American Statistical Association 58(304): 993–1010.
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Balestra, P. (1987). Seasonal Variation. In: The New Palgrave Dictionary of Economics. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1613-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-349-95121-5_1613-1
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Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Online ISBN: 978-1-349-95121-5
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