Predicting Malaysia Business Cycle using Wavelet Analysis

Wavelet transforms are capable to decompose time series at various level which corresponds to the resolution of the decomposition. We can find the trend, cycle, noise, structural break etc. This is where wavelets are so efficient in studying characteristics of the any time series. In this present article, we study the use of wavelet (symlet 16) to detect the business cycle in Malaysia. Firstly we decompose the time series then we study the long-run trend and we filtered the high frequency components and finally we find the business cycle in Malaysia. The results indicated the existence of business cycles for GDP data in Malaysia which is strongly counter-cyclical.