Bayesian Leading Indicators: Measuring and Predicting Economic Conditions in Iowa.

This paper designs and implements a Bayesian dynamic latent factor model for a vector of data describing the Iowa economy. Posterior distributions of parameters and the latent factor are analyzed by Markov chain Monte Carlo methods, and coincident and leading indicators are computed by using posterior mean values of current and predictive distributions for the latent factor. Copyright 1998 by Economics Department of the University of Pennsylvania and the Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association.