Some Stylized facts of Business cycles in Iran

Different detrending methods make possible to evaluate cyclical features of economic time series from different perspectives. In this way, it can be assessed whether different approaches to extract cycles, can provide useful information in order to better understanding behaviors of economic variables in business cycles. In this paper, we investigate Iran economic cyclical features through using different detrending methods and provide comparisons of their results. The results show that considering the unit root process for the trend of GDP and its components when decomposing into trend and cycle, can notably influences on the relationship between the cyclical components of important macroeconomic variables. This matter is also applicable in recognition of expansion and contraction, volatility and co-movements of variables. Findings indicate that direction of cyclical component movement of consumption, investment, and real wage, as well as the timing of investment and import, depends on whether the trend is considered DSP or not. Besides, the results demonstrate that price level is counter cyclical and import, and export are procyclical. In respect of timing, export is lagging and in most of the results, import is leading and price level is lagging.