nberShade {tis}R Documentation

Plotting NBER Recesssions

Description

nberDates returns a matrix with two columns of yyyymmdd dates giving the Start and End dates of recessions fixed by the NBER.

nber.xy returns a list of x and y coordinates that can be fed to polygon to draw NBER shadings on the current plot. If the last row from nberDates() has a Start entry but no End entry, the returned list will also include a vLine element that gives the x coordinate of the last Start.

nberShade shades recession areas on the current plot. It calls nber.xy to get x and y coordinates for the areas to be shaded and then passes those coordinates along with its own arguments to polygon to do the shading. It also draws a vertical line at the appropriate location if the list returned by nber.xy has a vLine element.

romerLines draws vertical lines on the current plot at the "Romer and Romer" dates when monetary policy is said to have become contractionary.

Usage

nberShade(col = grey(0.8), border = FALSE, xpd = FALSE, ...)
nberDates()
nber.xy()
romerLines()

Arguments

All passed along to polygon:

col color to shade recessionary periods
border the default (FALSE) omits borders on the shaded regions. TRUE draws borders in the foreground color. Alternatively, specify a border color.
xpd should clipping take place?
... other args passed to polygon

Value

As described above, nber.xy returns a list. The other functions described do not return anything useful.

Note

Recessions are dated by the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

The Romer dates are October 1947, September 1955, December 1968, April 1974, August 1978, October 1979 and December 1988.

Author(s)

Jeff Hallman

References

Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer. 1989. "Does Monetary Policy Matter? A New Test in the Spirit of Friedman and Schwartz." NBER Macroeconomics Annual 4: 121-170.

Christina D. Romer and David H. Romer. 1994. "Monetary Policy Matters." Journal ofMonetary Economics 34 (August): 75-88.

National Bureau of Economic Research. http://www.nber.org.

See Also

polygon


[Package tis version 1.2 Index]