Comment: Seasonal Adjustment—Models, Assumptions, and Criteria

Abstract

I enjoyed reading Bell and Hillmer's article, as it contains many original and thought-provoking ideas. Moreover, the healthy skepticism expressed in it can be of great value to further progress in seasonal adjustment research and practice. My comments are organized around several issues discussed in their article: the importance of adjustment in a modeling context; the use of judgment in determining assumptions and procedures; the role of evaluation criteria, including consistency; and some further modeling considerations.