The Australian Business Cycle: Joe Palooka or Dead Cat Bounce?

We address the question of whether asymmetry in the business cycle and asymmetry in the persistence of negative versus positive shocks characterises Australian output growth. Using nonlinear time series models we provide some evidence consistent with the idea that Australian output growth is characterised by three distinct phases: contractions, high-growth recovery periods and "normal" or moderate growth periods. This implies that Australian output fluctuations have a significant transitory component and is supportive of the "output-gaps" view and "plucking" model view of economic fluctuations. In contrast to recent evidence for the US and Canada however, we find that Australian GDP growth does not exhibit important asymmetries in the responses of output growth to positive and negative shocks. Copyright 2002 by Blackwell Publishers Ltd/University of Adelaide and Flinders University of South Australia