Seasonal adjustment with the X-11 method (Q5926094)

Seasonal adjustment methods are very useful in many subject-matter fields, and as a consequence they are very popular, and contributions appearing in the literature are frequent. Contributions are either theoretical or applied in their approaches. The present book contains no specific contribution to the theory of seasonal analysis. It emphazises historical perspectives, description of statistical methods, and applications directed to illustrate their use. The procedures described originated in the economic and social fields, but found applications in many other areas. Chapter 1 is a very useful ``Brief History of Seasonal Adjustment''. It starts with the decomposition of series of intra-anual observations into trend, cycle, seasonal and irregular components. Of particular usefulness is a flow diagram covering developments that occurred along many years. These are separated into implicit, nonparametric and explicit parametric models. Its usefulness is enhanced by explicit reference to existing software. Chapters 2, 4 and 5 describe the X--11 method. Chapter 2 outlines the procedures and compares the developments identified as X--11, X--11-ARIMA and X--12-ARIMA. Chapter 4 provides a detailed presentation of the various tables and graphs in X--12-ARIMA. This is particularly useful because the output of this program is very long and complex. Chapter 5 describes the ``Easter Effect'', an option in the programs to account for the possible effects of Easter behavior of consumers and other economic agents. Chapter 3 presents ``Some Definitions and a Little Theory'' about the statistical technique of moving averages. As such it is a unified source of reference. The authors are to be commended for a very useful and timely addition to the literature. Work by these authors was done at the Statistics Canada Time Series and Analysis Center. Statistics Canada has been an important source of advances in the area of seasonality and helped to extend in various directions work initiated in 1967 (at least from the point of view of use by the general public) at the USA Bureau of Census. The use of methods such as X--11-ARIMA is usually concentrated in government agencies. Researchers and other users in academic, business and professional circles often complain about lack of information to become well-informed users of these procedures. This book can be highly recommended as a single source of detailed information for this purpose.