Enhanced Methods of Seasonal Adjustment

Abstract

The effect of the conventional model-based methods of seasonal adjustment is to nullify the elements of the data that reside at the seasonal frequencies and to attenuate the elements at the adjacent frequencies. It may be desirable to nullify some of the adjacent elements instead of merely attenuating them. For this purpose, two alternative sets of procedures are presented that have been implemented in a computer program named SEASCAPE. In the first set of procedures, a basic seasonal adjustment filter is augmented by additional filters that are targeted at the adjacent frequencies. In the second set of procedures, a Fourier transform of the data is exploited to allow the elements in the vicinities of the seasonal frequencies to be eliminated or attenuated at will. The question is raised of whether an estimated trend-cycle trajectory that is devoid of high-frequency noise can serve in place of the seasonally adjusted data.