We show that an extension of the Markov-switching dynamic factor models that accounts for the specificities of the day to day monitoring of economic developments such as ragged edges, mixed frequencies and data revisions is a good tool to forecast the Euro area recessions in real time. We...

We develop a twofold analysis of how the information provided by several economic indicators can be used in Markov-switching dynamic factor models to identify the business cycle turning points. First, we compare the performance of a fully non-linear multivariate specification (one-step approach)...

The design of the initial scoreboard is presented in the first Alert Mechanism Report (AMR) issued by the Commission on 14 February 2012. This paper adds to the AMR by describing in more detail the rationale of the different indicators, the choices made in the selection process and how they...