Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles

Gain the knowledge and skills that can help you exploit instability.

No book can help you construct foolproof forecasting systems that will ensure you'll accurately predict economic turning points every time. But with Niemira and Klein's Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles on hand, you'll be able to significantly strengthen your ability to measure, monitor, and forecast important fluctuations. Part history, it provides you with essential background material on the characteristics and causes of economic volatility. It offers accessible coverage of the classical business cycle, the five basic types of economic cycles as determined by leading economists, and evolving ideas on the forces driving instability―ranging from simple unicausal theories, more complex Keynesian theory, to new classical macroeconomics. In addition, its concise review of America's economic past highlights the lessons that can be learned from the various cycles experienced since shortly before World War II. Part handbook, Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles presents the full spectrum of statistical techniques used to measure cycles, trends, seasonal patterns, and other vital changes, offering you step-by-step guidance on applying a specific method and detailing its uses and limitations. It goes on to show how youcan adapt particular techniques to assess, track, and predict:

• Industry cycles―including an objective, tailor-made forecasting tool
• Regional business cycles―including a survey of regional indicators
• International business cycles―with an international business cycle chronology
• Inflation cycles―plus "12 little-known facts" about this complex cycle
• Financial cycles―covering credit, monetary, and interest rate cycles
• Stock market cycles―with advice on achieving more disciplined trading

Based on outstanding scholarship and years of practical experience, Forecasting Financial and Economic Cycles will serve as an invaluable tool for practitioners like you whose decision-making―and profit margin―depend on accurately assessing today's often uncertain economic climate.

"Forecasting Financialand Economic Cycles provides a lively survey of the many ways that cyclical economic activity has been dissected and analyzed. With this book, an astute reader may even be able to anticipate the next cyclical turn."
―Samuel D. Kahan, Chief Economist Fuji Securities, Inc.

"The definitive book on the most important and enduringfeature of an often mist-bound economic landscape: the business cycle."
―Alfred L. Malabre, Jr., Economics Editor, The Wall Street,Journal

"Niemira and Klein cover both the theory of economic cyclesand methods for forecasting them. They provide one of the most comprehensive and current reviews of academic studies of economic cycles to be found anywhere."
―Anthony F. Herbst, Professor of Finance, The University of Texas at El Paso

"This book succeeds as a comprehensive, balanced, and accessible treatment of fluctuations in economic and financial activity. It should prove useful to all those in industry and finance who wish to understand and analyze the trends and changes in the modern dynamic economy."
―Victor Zarnowitz, Professor Emeritus of Economics and Finance, University of Chicago

About the Authors MICHAEL P. NIEMIRA is Vice President and Economist at Mitsubishi Bank in New York. Previously, he worked as an economist at Paine Webber, Chemical Bank, and Merrill Lynch. He regularly writes for Cycles, the magazine of the Foundation for the Study of Cycles. His earlier work on industry cycles earned him the National Association of Business Economistsa A.G. Abramson award for an "outstanding contribution to the professional literature in the field of business economics." PHILIP A. KLEIN is Professor of Economics at Pennsylvania State University and is an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Forecasting. He has consulted on business cycle indicators for OECD, the EEC, and the World Bank. He has written widely on business cycles and has worked for many years with Geoffrey H. Moore. He is a Research Associate at the Center for International Business Cycle Research at Columbia University.