UNDERSTANDING INDONESIA’S MACROECONOMIC DATA: WHAT DO WE KNOW AND WHAT ARE THE IMPLICATIONS?

Unit root properties of macroeconomic data are important for both econometric modelling specifications and policy making. The form of variables (whether they are a unit root process) helps determine the correct econometric modelling. Equally, the form of variables helps explain how they react to shocks (both internal and external). Macroeconomic time-series data are often at the forefront of shock analysis and econometric modelling. There is a growing emphasis on research on Indonesia using time-series data; yet, there is limited understanding of data characteristics and shock response of these data. Using an extensive dataset comprising 33 macroeconomic time-series variables, we provide an informative empirical analysis of unit root properties of data. We find that regardless of data frequencies the empirical evidence of unit roots is mixed, some series respond quickly to shocks others do take time, and almost every macroeconomic data suffers from structural breaks. We draw implications of these findings