This paper presents ideas and methods underlying the construction of an indicator that tracks the euro area GDP growth, but, unlike GDP growth, (i) is updated monthly and almost in real time; (ii) is free from hort-run dynamics. Removal of short-run dynamics from a time series, to isolate the...

We incorporate factors extracted from a large panel of macroeconomic time series in the predictions of two signals related to real economic activity: business cycle fluctuations and the medium- to long-run component of output growth. The latter is simply output growth short of fluctuations with...

This paper constructs coincident indices of Australian economic activity using techniques for estimating approximate factor models with many series, using data that begin in the early 1960s. The resulting monthly and quarterly indices both provide plausible measures of the Australian business...