Chapter Summary:
Throughout the whole book, authors use the specific software for the estimation purpose, i.e. SAS. SAS stands for statistical analysis system. It is specially build for the time series analysis, which is currently wildly use in different sectors.
In this chapter authors introduce the SAS software to the reader. By using SAS software, an analyst can be comfortably characterize different time series, through the proper utilization of econometric technique. In this chapter authors especially focus on the first step of applied time series analysis is to understand the behaviour of a time series, which helps during modelling and forecasting. Plot, plot and plot technique, can help us to understand the different four component of the any time series, i.e. trend, cycles, seasonality and irregular pattern. Then along with the plotting, the descriptive statistic: such as; mean, standard deviation and the stability ratio over the different business cycles will help the analyst to understand the series behaviour over time.
Formal tend estimation of a time series is also essential, as it helps analysts to determine whether a series has an upward or downward trend over the time. By characterizing the cyclical behaviour of a series, an analyst can learn the series behavior over different phases of a business cycle.