Energy production in Brazil: Empirical facts based on persistence, seasonality and breaks

This paper investigates the statistical properties of the production of energy in Brazil using long range dependence techniques in monthly data from January 2000 to February 2013. Two important features of the data are analyzed, in particular, its degree of persistence and seasonality. The results indicate first that seasonality is an essential issue in modeling the persistence in energy production. Also, the persistence itself, measured in terms of the differencing parameter is relevant, with orders of integration in the series found to be positive though smaller than 1 and thus implying mean reversion. A single structural break is also found in two of the series. Policy implications of the results obtained are also derived. (C) 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.