This paper investigates whether electricity generation can be used as an
indicator of a business cycle. We apply three estimation methods of time
warping functions - dynamic, landmark, and Procrustes - to obtain precise
time lags between the business cycle and the electricity generation. To find the
appropriate method, we apply the three methods to estimate the time warping
function of the real GDP and the composite indicators of Korea. Results show
that inference with the landmark and the Procrustes methods is consistent with
the purpose of the composite indicators designed by the Statistics Korea. We
apply the same methods to estimate the time warping functions between the
real GDP, industrial production index and electricity generation. It is found
that the industrial production index and the electricity generation are both
coincident with the real GDP. We propose the electricity generation as an
immediate coincident indicator for the business cycle of Korea since there are
no time lags between making and announcing the indicator in case of the
electricity generation.