Nonlinear Dynamics and European GNP Data

The aim of this paper is to assess whether the data-generation process of the GDP can be interpreted by means of a nonlinear model instead of a linear one. We model the first differences of logarithmic real GDP data with constant parameters for those European countries (France, Germany, Italy, U.K., Denmark, Sweden, and Norway) which have long-term time series. Since the linear autoregressive model is rejected, an alternative nonlinear model has been specified: it turns out that the annual European GDPs can adequately be described by means of a nonlinear model with constant parameters.