We investigate whether the KOF Barometer - a leading indicator regularly released by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute - can be useful for short-term out-of-sample prediction of year-on-year quarterly real GDP growth rates in Switzerland. We find that the KOF Barometer appears to be useful for...

We apply the novel approach of Siliverstovs (2015) to modelling data sampled at different frequencies in order to scrutinise the composition of one of the most influential economic indicators in Switzerland. The Purchasing Managers' Index consists of eight sub-indices out of which only five...

In this paper we extend the targeted-regressor approach suggested in Bai and Ng (2008) for variables sampled at the same frequency to mixed-frequency data. Our MIDASSO approach is a combination of the unrestricted MIxed-frequency DAta-Sampling approach (U-MIDAS) (see Foroni et al., 2015; Castle et...

Die geplante Stärkung der Eigenverantwortlichkeit der Länder im Zuge der Föderalismusreformen wird zu einem erhöhten Bedarf an Konjunkturprognosen für Bundesländer führen. Während in Deutschland für die Konjunkturbeobachtung auf gesamtstaatlicher Ebene Quartalsdaten zur Verfügung...

Die vorliegende Bewertung der Treffgenauigkeit von Prognosen sowie von vorläufigen amtlichen Berechnungen zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in Deutschland zeigt, dass frühe Prognosen nicht nur sehr ungenau sind, sondern auch systematisch zu optimistisch ausfallen. Die mehr als ein Jahr im...

This study utilizes the dynamic factor model of Giannone et al. (2008) in order to make now-/forecasts of GDP quarter-on-quarter growth rates in Switzerland. It also assesses the informational content of macroeconomic data releases for forecasting of the Swiss GDP. We find that the factor model...

We investigate whether the KOF Barometer–a leading indicator regularly released by the KOF Swiss Economic Institute–can be useful for short-term out-of-sample prediction of year-on-year quarterly real GDP growth rates in Switzerland. We find that the KOF Barometer appears to be useful for...

Based on annual data for growth and inflation forecasts for Germany covering the time span from 1970 to 2007 and up to 17 different forecasts per year, we test for a possible asymmetry of the forecasters' loss function and estimate the degree of asymmetry for each forecasting institution using...