A univariate first-order stochastic cycle can be represented as an element of a bivariate first-order vector autoregressive process, or VAR(1), where the transition matrix is associated with a rotation along a circle in the plane, and the reduced form is ARMA(2,1). This paper generalizes this representation in two directions. According to the first, the cyclical dynamics originate from the motion of a point along an ellipse. The reduced form is also ARMA(2,1), but the model can account for certain types of asymmetries. The second deals with the multivariate case: the cyclical dynamics result from the projection along one of the coordinate axis of a point moving in along an hyper-sphere. This is described by a VAR(1) process whose transition matrix is obtained by a sequence of n-dimensional Givens rotations. The reduced form of an element of the system is shown to be ARMA(n, n - 1). The properties of the resulting models are analysed in the frequency domain, and we show that this generalization can account for a multimodal spectral density. The illustrations show that the proposed generalizations can be fitted successfully to some well-known case studies of the time series literature. Copyright Copyright 2010 Blackwell Publishing Ltd
