Estimates of potential output and the output gap are essential elements in the toolkit of policy makers. Latest changes in the European fiscal framework have strengthened significantly the role of structural budget balances, which rest on output gap calculations. With the adoption of the Fiscal...

The authors evaluate the out-of-sample forecasting performance of six competing models at horizons of up to three quarters ahead in a pseudo-real time setup. All the models use information in monthly indicators released ahead of quarterly GDP. The authors estimate two models – averaged vector...

We evaluate the out-of-sample forecasting performance of six competing models at horizons of up to three quarters ahead in a pseudo-real time setup. All the models use information in monthly indicators released ahead of quarterly GDP. We estimate two models – averaged vector autoregressions...