To date, only annual information on economic activity is published for the 16 German states. In this paper, we calculate quarterly regional GDP estimates for the period between 1995 to 2021, thereby improving the regional database for Germany. The new data set will regularly be updated when...

Predictability is time and frequency dependent. We propose a new forecasting method - forecast combination in the frequency domain - that takes this fact into account. With this method we forecast the equity premium and real GDP growth rate. Combining forecasts in the frequency domain produces...

In Europe differences among countries in the overall change in happiness since the early 1980s have been due chiefly to the generosity of welfare state programs - increasing happiness going with increasing generosity and declining happiness with declining generosity. This is the principal...

We develop an experimental framework to investigate the quantity theory of money and the real effects of inflation in an economy where money serves as a medium of exchange. We test the classical view that inflation reduces output and welfare by taxing monetary exchange. Inflation is engineered...

European countries experienced a large increase in labor supply due to the influx of Ukrainian refugees after the 2022 Russia invasion. We study its dynamic effects in a spatial model with forward-looking households of different skills, trade, and endogenous capital accumulation. We find that...

Output gap revisions can be large even after many years. Real-time reliability tests might therefore be sensitive to the choice of the final output gap vintage that the real-time estimates are compared to. This is the case for the Federal Reserve's output gap. When accounting for revisions in...

We study the impact of the Indian trade liberalization of 1991 on development at the district level using satellite nighttime lights per capita as a proxy for development. We find that on average trade liberalization increased nighttime lights per capita but there was considerable heterogeneity...

This paper investigates determinants of convergence in GDP per capita in the euro area and the EU between 1995 and 2021. It finds that the COVID-19 crisis temporarily slowed convergence but the estimated negative impact is significantly smaller than during the global financial crisis. Diverging...

In this paper we describe the newly developed System for Model Analysis in Real Time (SMART) used for forecasting and model analysis in Norges Bank. While the long-term goal is to include all empirical models used in forecasting in Norges Bank, the emphasis in this paper will be on the empirical...

Economic analysts have used trends in total factor productivity (TFP) to evaluate the effectiveness with which economies are utilizing advances in technology. However, this measure is problematic on several different dimensions. First, the idea that it is possible to separate out the relative...

In this paper, we analyse Okun's law - a relation between the change in the unemployment rate and GDP growth - using data from Australia, the euro area, the United Kingdom and the United States. More specifically, we assess the relevance of non-Gaussianity when modelling the relation. This is...

Business bribery is a particularly serious problem in the integration era. First, this article investigates the effects of institutional obstacles on firms' bribery in 131 countries classified by nation income groups. Through the appropriate proposal of fitting functions, the relationship...

We propose a simple and reproducible methodology to create a single equation forecasting model (SEFM) for low-frequency macroeconomic variables. Our methodology is illustrated by forecasting annual real GDP growth rates for 52 African countries, where the data are obtained from the World Bank...

This study aims to construct a new monthly leading indicator for Tunisian economic activity and to forecast Tunisian quarterly real GDP (RGDP) using several mixed-frequency models. These include a mixed dynamic factor model, unrestricted mixed-data sampling (UMIDAS), and a threepass regression...

This paper reviews South Africa's monetary policy since 2007 and makes recommendations towards improving the inflation-targeting framework currently in place. Following a surge in inflation into double digits in 2007/08, the South African Reserve Bank managed to guide inflation in line with the...

The idea that certain economic variables are roughly constant in the long-run is an old one. Kaldor described them as stylized facts, whereas Klein and Kosobud labelled them great ratios. While such ratios are widely adopted in theoretical models in economics as conditions for balanced growth,...

We provide key insights on expectation formation based on the Bloomberg economic survey: around two thirds of professional forecasters provide GDP forecasts that are temporally consistent, meaning that quarterly forecasts add up to the annual. Temporally consistent forecasts are not more...

We document whether a simple, univariate model for quarterly GDP growth is able to deliver forecasts in a crisis period like the Covid-19 pandemic, which may serve cross-checking forecasts obtained from elaborate and expert models used by forecasting institutions. We include shocks to the log...

Recent literature suggests that the positive impact of population density on wages, the canonical measure of agglomeration effects, is multiples higher in developing countries than in advanced economies. This poses an urban productivity puzzle because on-the-ground observations do not suggest...

We develop a Bayesian Structural VAR (SVAR) model to study the relationship between different kinds of energy shocks and inflation dynamics in Europe. Specifically, we include in our specification two separate energy markets (oil and natural gas) and two target macroeconomic variables, measuring...

We estimate the subnational employment and GDP multiplier of Brazil's 2020 federal cash transfers to vulnerable households. Using two-stage least squares regressions we estimate a formal employment multiplier and then apply an analytical transformation to recover an implied GDP multiplier in the...

This paper describes recent work to strengthen nowcasting capacity at the IMF's European department. It motivates and compiles datasets of standard and nontraditional variables, such as Google search and air quality. It applies standard dynamic factor models (DFMs) and several machine learning...

This paper analyzes the availability, methodological soundness, and scope of National Accounts statistics in IMF member and non-member countries in 2020. National Account statistics are instrumental in the development of fiscal and monetary policy and in monitoring economic developments. This...

Assessing potential output and the output gap is essential for policy-making and fiscal surveillance. The European Commission proposes a production function methodology that involves the estimation of two classes of Gaussian state space models. This paper presents the R package RGAP which...

We analyze how trade affects aggregate volatility using a multi-country, multiindustry, and multi-destination framework. We decompose aggregate output growth risk into destination risk, origin risk, and idiosyncratic risk (and their covariances). We then use this framework to run counterfactuals...

This research aims to examine the effects of remittance outflows on Saudi's non-oil economic growth (NOGDP). While few studies have examined the effects of remittance outflows on remitting countries' economic development, none have looked into the asymmetric impact on Saudi Arabia's non-oil...

In recent decades, the emergence of global value chains (GVCs) has changed international trade patterns. Today, the production of goods involves international production sharing, which allows countries to trace the value-added distribution to international trade. However, the COVID-19 pandemic...