Seite - 120 - in The Austrian Business Cycle in the European Context

120 average a small lead resulting from leads in the case of troughs, but not for peaks. Its median suggests a coincident behaviour with respect to the reference series autGVAex, but for troughs, again a lead of two quarters is observed. The Austrian industrial sector (autCDE) exhibits a coincident be- haviour which is consistent between averages and medians. For the just filtered series shown in Table A 3 c, a small lead can be ob- served. Whereas euro area GDP (again without Austria and Germany) shows on average a lead of two quarters, which goes for peaks as well as for troughs, no such lead can be observed for the German gross value added excluding agriculture and forestry (gerGVAex). This cannot be explained by the fact that in the case of the dy- namic factor estimation all series enter into the determination of the business cycle, such that business cycle dates are shifted more to an international interpretation. It is true that now also interna- tional series enter into the estimation procedure, but if they are observed for a large number of frequencies their leading and lag- ging properties are already considered implicitly. Interestingly, autGHI and the German construction sector are identified as leading series, which goes for averages as well as for medians. This is not supported by theory, nor is it observed for just filtered series. The respective statistics are inconclusive, but the small lead of one quarter should not be over-emphasised. For the German trade, restaurant and transport and communication ser- vices, a small lag of one quarter is reported, whereas the just fil- tered results suggest a coincident behaviour. There again, no reli- able conclusion can be drawn. Tables A 10 a to c show further statistics which are similar to those presented in the Tables A 4 a to c. For the reference series autGVAex it can be observed that the length of cycles and phases has been reduced substantially when compared with just filtered series. This is surprising, since the clearing for idiosyncratic