Nowcashing : Using Daily Fiscal Data for Real-Time Macroeconomic Analysis

Traditionally, fiscal data for policy analysis are derived from official reports that, depending onthe country, are published either monthly, quarterly or annually, often with significant time lags.However, innovations in digitalization of government payments and accounting systems meanthat real-time daily fiscal data exist in many countries. In this paper, we argue that these datacontain valuable, but underutilized and underexploited information. Possible uses include (i) realtimefiscal surveillance which allows for much more timely responses to emerging signs of fiscalstress, and (ii) nowcasting economic activity, which is especially useful in countries where higherfrequency GDP statistics are unavailable