Economic policy makers, international organisations and private-sector forecasters commonly use short-term forecasts of real GDP growth based on monthly indicators, such as industrial production, retail sales and confidence surveys. An assessment of the reliability of such tools and of the...

The U.S. Subprime Crisis and the subsequent Great Recession have highlighted a renewed interest in the proper design and implementation of Early Warning Systems (E.W.S.), in order to help deter the onset of subsequent extreme financial events, through the implementation of adequate crisis...

This paper describes an algorithm, “DoomBot”, which selects parsimonious models to predict downturns over different quarterly horizons covering the ensuing two years for 20 OECD countries. The models are country- and horizon-specific and are automatically updated as the estimation sample...

Following the winter recession and stagnation in the second quarter of 2023, the economic upswing is proceeding at a sluggish pace, contrary to expectations over the summer. Weak foreign demand and ongoing inflation have proven to be slowing economic growth. For the time being, private...