Statistical Analysis And Forecasting Of Economic Structural Change

Statistical Analysis and Forecasting of Economic Structural Change

In 1984, the University of Bonn (FRG) and the International Institute for Applied System Analysis (IIASA) in Laxenburg (Austria), created a joint research group to analyze the relationship between economic growth and structural change. The research team was to examine the commodity composition as well as the size and direction of commodity and credit flows among countries and regions. Krelle (1988) reports on the results of this "Bonn-IIASA" research project. At the same time, an informal IIASA Working Group was initiated to deal with prob lems of the statistical analysis of economic data in the context of structural change: What tools do we have to identify nonconstancy of model parameters? What type of models are particularly applicable to nonconstant structure? How is forecasting affected by the presence of nonconstant structure? What problems should be anticipated in applying these tools and models? Some 50 experts, mainly statisticians or econometricians from about 15 countries, came together in Lodz, Poland (May 1985); Berlin, GDR (June 1986); and Sulejov, Poland (September 1986) to present and discuss their findings. This volume contains a selected set of those conference contributions as well as several specially invited chapters.

Statistical Analysis and Forecasting of Economic Structural Change

Economic Structural Change

Structural change is a fundamental concept in economic model building. Statistics and econometrics provide the tools for identification of change, for estimating the onset of a change, for assessing its extent and relevance. Statistics and econometrics also have de veloped models that are suitable for picturing the data-generating process in the presence of structural change by assimilating the changes or due to the robustness to its presence. Important subjects in this context are forecasting methods. The need for such methods became obvious when, as a consequence of the oil price shock, the results of empirical analyses suddenly seemed to be much less reliable than before. Nowadays, economists agree that models with fixed structure that picture reality over longer periods are illusions. An example for less dramatic causes than the oil price shock with similarly profound effects is economic growth and its impacts on the economic system. Indeed, economic growth was a motivating concept for this volume. In 1983, the International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA) in Laxen burg/ Austria initiated an ambitious project on "Economic Growth and Structural Change".