Multivariate Extension of the Hodrick-Prescott Filter-Optimality and Characterization

The univariate Hodrick-Prescott filter depends on the noise-to-signal ratio that acts as a smoothing parameter. We first propose an optimality criterion for choosing the best smoothing parameters. We show that the noise-to-signal ratio is the unique minimizer of this criterion, when we use an orthogonal parametrization of the trend, whereas it is not the case when an initial-value parametrization of the trend is applied. We then propose a multivariate extension of the filter and show that there is a whole class of positive definite matrices that satisfy a similar optimality criterion, when we apply an orthogonal parametrization of the trend.