Early Warning Signals of Financial Crises Using Persistent Homology and Critical Slowing Down: Evidence From Different Correlation Tests

Abstract

In this study, a new market representation from persistence homology, known as the L1-norm time series, is used and applied independently with three critical slowing down indicators [autocorrelation function at lag 1, variance, and mean for power spectrum (MPS)] to examine two historical financial crises (Dotcom crash and Lehman Brothers bankruptcy) in the US market. The captured signal is the rising trend in the indicator time series, which can be determined by Kendall's tau correlation test. Furthermore, we examined Pearson's and Spearman's rho correlation tests as potential substitutes for Kendall's tau correlation. After that, we determined a correlation threshold and predicted the whole available date. The point of comparison between these correlation tests is to determine which test is significant and consistent in classifying the rising trend. The results of such a comparison will suggest the best test that can classify the observed rising trend and detect early warning signals (EWSs) of impending financial crises. Our outcome shows that the L1-norm time series is more likely to increase before the two financial crises. Kendall's tau, Pearson's, and Spearman's rho correlation tests consistently indicate a significant rising trend in the MPS time series before the two financial crises. Based on the two evaluation scores (the probability of successful anticipation and probability of erroneous anticipation), by using the L1-norm time series with MPS, our result in the whole prediction demonstrated that Spearman's rho correlation (46.15 and 53.85%) obtains the best score as compared to Kendall's tau (42.31 and 57.69%) and Pearson's (40 and 60%) correlations. Therefore, by using Spearman's rho correlation test, L1-norm time series with MPS is shown to be a better way to detect EWSs of US financial crises.