The Korean Journal of Economic Studies
Business Cycles and Electricity Generation
Seokjong Kim(Sungkyunkwan Univsersity), In-Moo Kim(Sungkyunkwan Univsersity)Year 2014Vol. 62No. 2
Abstract
This paper investigates whether electricity generation can be used as anindicator of a business cycle. We apply three estimation methods of timewarping functions - dynamic, landmark, and Procrustes - to obtain precisetime lags between the business cycle and the electricity generation. To find theappropriate method, we apply the three methods to estimate the time warpingfunction of the real GDP and the composite indicators of Korea. Results showthat inference with the landmark and the Procrustes methods is consistent withthe purpose of the composite indicators designed by the Statistics Korea. Weapply the same methods to estimate the time warping functions between thereal GDP, industrial production index and electricity generation. It is foundthat the industrial production index and the electricity generation are bothcoincident with the real GDP. We propose the electricity generation as animmediate coincident indicator for the business cycle of Korea since there areno time lags between making and announcing the indicator in case of theelectricity generation.