International Evidence on the Asymmetry of Business Cycle Turning Points

Turning point symmetry implies that a time series displays cycles that exhibit similar behavior around peaks and troughs. In this paper two tests for business cycle turning point symmetry are applied to industrial production data from a number of OECD countries. A Markov chain test provides very weak evidence for turning point asymmetry for these countries. Several problems with this approach are identified, and nonparametric methods are proposed as alternatives to the Markov chain test and reveal more clear‐cut evidence for turning point asymmetry.