The German economy is stuck in a period of stagnation: Following two years of consecutive slight declines in GDP, growth is not expected for 2025 either. Weak exports, rising unemployment worries, and the resulting reserved private consumption and economic policy uncertainty are slowing the...

Recent rises in macroeconomic volatility have prompted the introduction of quantile vector autoregression (QVAR) models to forecast macroeconomic risk. This paper provides an extensive evaluation of the predictive performance of QVAR models in a pseudo-out-of-sample experiment spanning 112...

This paper focuses on identifying useful indicators for nowcasting GDP in Sweden. We analyze 35 monthly indicators spanning the period from 1993 to 2023. Additionally, we evaluate the group-wise performance of these indicators. The analysis is conducted using mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) and...

The paper compares two forecasts of Slovak GDP, the first with high-frequency data and the second without them. We utilize the last observation from the economic activity index acting as a short-term GDP forecast. We use data from 2000 to 2024 in weekly frequencies and have 27 variables related...

In April, sceptical economic assessments continued to prevail. By sector, the deterioration was particularly evident in services and retail trade. In manufacturing, economic assessments improved but remained at a low level. Compared with the previous quarter, uncertainty rose particularly in...

The special topic examines the impact of selected factors on consumers' views of their country's economic situation, based on a supplementary ad hoc question added to the February/March 2025 waves of the consumer survey. The analysis assesses the responses at the EU level, as well as by country...

This Spring Forecast projects real GDP growth in 2025 at 1.1% in the EU and 0.9% in the euro area- broadly the same rates attained in 2024. This represents a considerable downgrade compared to the Autumn 2024 Forecast (AF24), largely due to the impact of increased tariffs and the heightened...

The ifo Business Climate Index is one of the most important leading indicators for the German economy. It is based on a monthly survey of approximately 9,000 firms and reflects responses to two core questions: the assessment of the firms' current business situation and their expectations for the...

Despite a strong start to 2025, the German economy will experience middling growth for the time being before beginning a long-awaited upturn at the end of the year. DIW Berlin's forecast indicates growth of 0.3 percent for 2025 and of 1.7 percent for 2026; thus, DIW Berlin is increasing its forecast...

Increasing geopolitical tensions and trade fragmentation are challenging the resilience of global value chains, by undermining the collaborative networks on which they depend. As countries impose trade restrictions or become less reliable partners, companies may reconfigure their supply chains,...

After two years of recession, Austria's economic output is likely to stagnate in 2025. WIFO expects GDP growth of 1.2 percent in 2026. The upturn in the global economy should then give the Austrian economy some momentum again, driven by both exports and domestic demand.

This paper presents a weekly GDP indicator for Switzerland, which addresses the limitations of existing economic activity indicators using alternative high-frequency data created in the wake of the COVID-19 pandemic. The indicator is obtained from a Bayesian mixed-frequency dynamic factor model...

This study investigates the utility of business uncertainty indicators as predictive tools for forecasting economic activity in the context of Russia. In an era characterized by global economic volatility and geopolitical shifts, understanding the dynamics of economic uncertainty and its impact...

We develop a novel methodology to quantify forecasts based on qualitative survey data. The methodology is generally applicable when quantitative information is available on the realization of the forecasted variable, for example from firm balance sheets. The method can be applied to a wide range...

This paper applies machine learning to forecast business cycles in the German economy using a high-dimensional dataset with 73 indicators, primarily from the OECD Main Economic Indicator Database, covering a time period from 1973 to 2023. Sequential Floating Forward Selection (SFFS) is used to...