Seasonal Cointegration in Macroeconomic Systems: Case Studies for Small and Large European Countries.

Stochastic seasonality in vector autoregressions draws attention to seasonal cointegrating vectors. Based upon the assumption of stochastic seasonality, seasonal cointegration is found in a six-dimensional vector autogregression of quarterly macroeconomic series which were not seasonally adjusted. The same experiment is performed on parallel data from four European economies: Austria, Finland, Germany, and the United Kingdom. Univariate and multivariate statistical evidence supports stochastic seasonality in Finland and Germany, whereas deterministic cycles dominate in Austria and the United Kingdom. Eventual correspondences of seasonal structures across countries are also analyzed. Copyright 1993 by MIT Press.