This paper proposes a new methodology based on textual analysis to forecast U.S. recessions. Specifically, the paper … activity. When used in a standard recession probability model, the index outperforms the yield curve based forecast, a standard … method to forecast recessions, at medium horizons, up to 8 months. Moreover, the index contains information not included in …

-herd and thereby, tend to intentionally scatter their forecasts around the consensus forecast. The extent of anti-herding seems … to vary over time. For Canada and the United States, we found that more prounounced anti-herding leads to lower forecast …

output gap estimates and forecast horizons, the results point clearly to a lack of any usefulness of real-time output gap … forecast real GDP growth, particularly in the short term, and some appear also useful in the medium run. No single output gap …