Most central banks effect changes to their target or policy rate in discrete increments (e.g., multiples of 0.25%) following public announcements on scheduled dates. Still, for most applications, researchers rely on the assumption that the policy rate changes linearly with economic conditions...

This study examines whether payment system data can be useful for tracking economic activity in Azerbaijan. We utilise the transactional payment system data at the sectoral level and employ a Dynamic Factor Model (DFM) and Machine Learning (ML) techniques to nowcast quarterover-quarter and...

Modeling short-term interest rates as following regime-switching processes has become increasingly popular. Theoretically, regime-switching models are able to capture rational expectations of infrequently occurring discrete events. Technically, they allow for potential time-varying stationarity....

We analyse the predictive ability of real-time macroeconomic information for the yield curve of interest rates. We specify a mixed-frequency macro-yields model in real-time that incorporates interest rate surveys and treats macroeconomic factors as unobservable components. Results indicate that...

The analysis of payment data has become an important task for operators and overseers of financial market infrastructures. Payment data provide an accurate description of how banks manage their liquidity over time. In this paper we compare three models to predict future liquidity flows from...

Predicting the economy's short-term dynamics-a vital input to economic agents' decisionmaking process-often uses lagged indicators in linear models. This is typically sufficient during normal times but could prove inadequate during crisis periods such as COVID-19. This paper demonstrates: (a)...

This paper examines whether machine learning (ML) algorithms can outperform a linear model in predicting monthly growth in Canada of both house prices and existing home sales. The aim is to apply two widely used ML techniques (support vector regression and multilayer perceptron) in economic...

This paper examines which macroeconomic and financial variables are most informative for the federal funds target rate decisions made by the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) from a forecasting perspective. The analysis is conducted for the FOMC decision during the period January 1990 - June...

Central banks' operations and efficiency arguments would suggest that the intraday interest rate should be set to zero. However, a liquidity crisis introduces frictions related to news, which can cause an upward jump of the intraday rate. This paper documents that these dynamics can be partially...