Hauptbeschreibung The analysis of cyclical macroeconomic phenomena is an important field of econometric research. In the recent past, research interests have de-emphasized quantitative forecasting exercises and have addressed the qualitative diagnosis of the relative stance of the economy regarding ""upswing"", ""recession"", or ""boom"" periods, i. e. the classification of the state of the economy into a limited number of discrete states. In this context the principal challenge is to reduce the multifaceted and sometimes abundant quantitative information about the business cycle to |