This article evaluates the use of financial data sampled at high frequencies to improve short-term forecasts of quarterly GDP for Mexico. In particular, the mixed data sampling (MIDAS) regression model is employed to incorporate both quarterly and daily frequencies while remaining parsimonious....

We estimate a Markow-switching dynamic factor model with three states based on six leading business cycle indicators for Germany preselected from a broader set using the Elastic Net soft-thresholding rule. The three states represent expansions, normal recessions and severe recessions. We show...

A key goal of politicians is to ensure a sustainable and stable economic growth path for their domestic economy. Economic forecasts are powerful tools for reducing uncertainty about future economic growth. While most of the research conducted to date has focused on nation states, this thesis by...

This paper proposes a method that takes into account the calendar of European and Belgian intraquarterly data releases to automatically update GDP growth expectations or nowcasts in realtime. The role of surveys is well known in the nowcasting literature, but this is the first paper that has...

Konjunkturprognosen werden sinnvollerweise auf der Grundlage saisonbereinigter Daten erstellt, damit jahreszeitlich übliche Schwankungen ausgeschaltet werden. Kommt es aber zu extremen Witterungslagen, wenn etwa ein Winter besonders heftig oder aber auch besonders mild ausfällt, dann spiegeln...

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...

This paper explores the role that inflation forecasts play in the uncertainty surrounding the estimated effects of alternative monetary rules on unemployment dynamics in the euro area and the US. We use the inflation forecasts of 8 competing models in a standard Bayesian VAR to analyse the size...

The term now-casting is a contraction for now and forecasting and has been used for a long-time in meteorology and recently also in economics. In this paper we survey recent developments in economic now-casting with special focus on those models that formalize key features of how market...

This paper evaluates different models for the short-term forecasting of real GDP growth in ten selected European countries and the euro area as a whole. Purely quarterly models are compared with models designed to exploit early releases of monthly indicators for the nowcast and forecast of...

Forecasting the world economy is a difficult task given the complex interrelationships within and across countries. This paper proposes a number of approaches to forecast short-term changes in selected world economic variables and aims, first, at ranking various forecasting methods in terms of...