QUARTERLY options ;

The QUARTERLY statement must be used when the input data are quarterly time series. This statement includes options that determine the computations performed by the procedure and what is in the printed output. The DATE= option or the START= option must be used.

The following options can appear in the QUARTERLY statement.

ADDITIVE

performs additive adjustments. If this option is omitted, the procedure performs multiplicative adjustments.

CHARTS= STANDARD

CHARTS= FULL

CHARTS= NONE

specifies the charts to be produced by the procedure. The default value is CHARTS=STANDARD, which specifies four quarterly seasonal charts and a trend cycle chart. If you specify CHARTS=FULL (or CHARTS=ALL), the procedure prints additional charts of irregular and seasonal factors. To print no charts, specify CHARTS=NONE. The TABLES statement can also be used to specify particular charts to be printed. The presence of a TABLES statement overrides the default value of CHARTS=STANDARD; that is, if a TABLES statement is specified, and no CHARTS=option is specified, no charts (nor tables) are printed except those given in the TABLES statement. However, if both the CHARTS= option and a TABLES statement are given, the charts corresponding to the CHARTS= option and those requested by the TABLES statement are printed.

For example, suppose you wanted only charts G1, the final seasonally adjusted series and trend cycle, and G4, the final irregular and final modified irregular series. This is accomplished by specifying the following statements:

   quarterly date=date;
   tables g1 g4;

DATE= variable

specifies a variable that gives the date for each observation. The starting and ending dates are obtained from the first and last values of the DATE= variable, which must contain SAS date values. The procedure checks values of the DATE= variable to ensure that the input observations are sequenced correctly. This variable is automatically added to the OUTPUT= data set if one is requested, and extrapolated if necessary. If the DATE= option is not specified, the START= option must be specified.

The DATE= option and the START= and END= options can be used in combination to subset a series for processing. For example, suppose you have a series with 10 years of quarterly data (40 observations, no missing values) beginning in '1970Q1' and ending in '1979Q4', and you want to seasonally adjust only four years beginning in '1974Q1' and ending in '1977Q4'. Specifying

   quarterly date=variable start='1974q1' end='1977q4';

seasonally adjusts only this subset of the data. If instead you wanted to adjust the last six years of data, only the START= option is needed:

   quarterly date=variable start='1974q1';

END= ‘yyyyQq’

specifies that only the part of the input series ending with the quarter and year given be adjusted (for example, END=’1973Q4’). The specification must be enclosed in quotes and q must be 1, 2, 3, or 4. See the DATE= variable option for using the START= and END= options to subset a series.

FULLWEIGHT= value

assigns weights to irregular values based on their distance from the mean in standard deviation units. The weights are used for estimating seasonal and trend cycle components. Irregular values less than the FULLWEIGHT= value (in standard deviation units) are assigned full weights of 1, values that fall between the ZEROWEIGHT= and FULLWEIGHT= limits are assigned weights linearly graduated between 0 and 1, and values greater than the ZEROWEIGHT= limit are assigned a weight of 0.

For example, if ZEROWEIGHT=2 and FULLWEIGHT=1, a value 1.3 standard deviations from the mean would be assigned a graduated weight. The default is FULLWEIGHT=1.5.

NDEC= n

specifies the number of decimal places shown on the output tables. This option has no effect on the precision of the variables in the output data set.

PRINTOUT= STANDARD

PRINTOUT= LONG

PRINTOUT= FULL

PRINTOUT= NONE

specifies the tables to print. If PRINTOUT=STANDARD is specified, between 17 and 27 tables are printed, depending on the other options that are specified. PRINTOUT=LONG prints between 27 and 39 tables, and PRINTOUT=FULL prints between 44 and 59 tables. Specifying PRINTOUT=NONE results in no tables being printed. The default is PRINTOUT=STANDARD.

The TABLES statement can also specify particular quarterly tables to be printed. If no PRINTOUT= is given, and a TABLES statement is given, the TABLES statement overrides the default value of PRINTOUT=STANDARD; that is, no tables (or charts) are printed except those given in the TABLES statement. However, if both the PRINTOUT= option and a TABLES statement are given, the tables corresponding to the PRINTOUT= option and those requested by the TABLES statement are printed.

START= ’yyyyQq’

adjusts only the part of the input series starting with the quarter and year given. When the DATE= option is not used, the START= option gives the year and quarter of the first input observation (for example, START=’1967Q1’). The specification must be enclosed in quotes, and q must be 1, 2, 3, or 4. START= must be specified if the DATE= option is not given. If START= is specified (and no DATE= is given), and an OUTPUT= data set is requested, a variable named _DATE_ is added to the data set, giving the date value for a given observation. See the DATE= option for using the START= and END= options to subset a series.

SUMMARY

specifies that the input is already seasonally adjusted and that the procedure is to produce summary measures. If this option is omitted, the procedure performs seasonal adjustment of the input data before calculating summary measures.

TRENDADJ

modifies extreme irregular values prior to computing the trend cycle estimates. If this option is omitted, the trend cycle is computed without modification for extremes.

ZEROWEIGHT= value

assigns weights to irregular values based on their distance from the mean in standard deviation units. The weights are used for estimating seasonal and trend cycle components. Irregular values beyond the standard deviation limit specified in the ZEROWEIGHT= option are assigned zero weights. Values that fall between the two limits (ZEROWEIGHT= and FULLWEIGHT=) are assigned weights linearly graduated between 0 and 1. For example, if ZEROWEIGHT=2 and FULLWEIGHT=1, a value 1.3 standard deviations from the mean would be assigned a graduated weight. The default is ZEROWEIGHT=2.5.

The ZEROWEIGHT option can be used in conjunction with the FULLWEIGHT= option to adjust outliers from a monthly or quarterly series. See Example 31.3 later in this chapter for an illustration of this use.