This paper develops a new monthly World Trade Leading Indicator (WTLI) that relies on nonparametric and parametric approaches. Compared to the CPB World Trade Monitor’s benchmark indicator for global trade the WTLI captures turning points in global trade with an average lead between 2 and...

Aim of this paper is the construction of smooth indicator of the Italian industrial production index providing reliable end-of-sample information. Traditional smooth indicators are obtained using univariate filtering procedures based on symmetric or asymmetric filters inducing serious revisions....

In this paper we propose a simple model to forecast industrial production in Italy up to 6 months ahead. We show that the forecasts produced using the model outperform some popular forecasts as well as those stemming from an ARIMA model used as a benchmark and those from some single equation...

The aim of this article is to analyze trends of business cycle in the past decades. The main issues are following. Reasons of declining in economic activities. Special features of the postwar cycles. Causes of long-run changes in business cycle. Countercyclical policies. Impacts elements of new...

In this paper we propose a simple model to forecast industrial production in Italy. We show that the forecasts produced using the model outperform some popular forecasts as well as those stemming from a trading days- and outlierrobust ARIMA model used as a benchmark. We show that the use of...