On the centenary of the German hog cycle: new findings

Abstract

Perhaps the earliest systematic study that investigated the cyclical nature of hog prices was that conducted by Gerlich in 1911 using German data from the late nineteenth and early twentieth century. Using data from the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, we model the behaviour of the German hog-feed price ratio. A dynamic unobservable time series model which incorporates both a stochastic trend and a stochastic cycle is developed and applied to these data. We find a significant four-year cycle and provide evidence that it is becoming more volatile. , Oxford University Press.