Star variables, such as potential output and the neutral real interest rate, are fundamental to economic policymaking but challenging to identify due to their latent nature. Buncic, Pagan, and Robinson (2023) highlight the difficulty of identifying star variables within short macroeconomic...

The projected increase in extreme climate events in the coming decades is likely to exacerbate the existing productivity and demographic challenges facing Europe. We study the dynamic, medium-run macroeconomic effects of heatwaves, droughts and floods in 1160 EU regions through the lens of a...

Determining potential output and the output gap-two inherently unobservable variables-is a major challenge for macroeconomists. This paper presents the R package sectorgap, which features a flexible modeling and estimation framework for a multivariate Bayesian state space model identifying...

We study the long-run interaction between Germany’s economic growth trajectory and demographic aging. Using a comprehensive dataset, we leverage the classical production function approach to estimate potential output growth between 1970 and 2070. We account for the inherent uncertainty in our...

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...

This study examines whether and how important it is to adjust output gap frameworks during the COVID-19 pandemic and similar unprecedentedly large-scale episodes. Our proposed modelling framework comprises a Bayesian Structural Vector Autoregresion with an identification setup based on a...

The Global Financial Crisis established that policymakers should consider the stage of the financial cycle to better evaluate the cyclical position of the economy when designing monetary policy decisions. If financial variables are omitted from the estimations of the output gap, a common and...

We propose a multivariate Bayesian state space model to identify potential growth and the output gap consistent with the dynamics of the underlying production sectors of the economy and those of inflation and the labor market. Our approach allows us to decompose economic fluctuations and...

We examine how demographic factors influence potential output, focusing on how the age distribution of the working-age population and the old-age dependency ratio affect aggregate productivity. Following Feyrer (2007), we emphasize that the contribution to aggregate productivity varies by age...

The COVID-19 crisis has affected economic sectors very heterogeneously, with possible risks for permanent losses in some sectors. This paper presents a sectoral-level, bottom- up method to estimate euro area potential outputin order to assess the impact of the crisis on it. The estimates are...

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...

Policy makers need to separate between temporary demand-driven shocks and permanent shocks in order to design optimal aggregate demand policies. In this paper we study the case of a central bank that ignores the presence of hysteresis when identifying shocks. By assuming that all low-frequency...

The projected increase in extreme climate events in the coming decades is likely to exacerbate the existing productivity and demographic challenges facing Europe. We study the dynamic, medium-run macroeconomic effects of heatwaves, droughts and floods in 1160 EU regions through the lens of a...

Determining potential output and the output gap-two inherently unobservable variables-is a major challenge for macroeconomists. This paper presents the R package sectorgap, which features a flexible modeling and estimation framework for a multivariate Bayesian state space model identifying...

We study the long-run interaction between Germany's economic growth trajectory and demographic aging. Using a comprehensive dataset, we leverage the classical production function approach to estimate potential output growth between 1970 and 2070. We account for the inherent uncertainty in our...

Uncertainty around the real-time output gap has important implications for fiscal policy. This study uses successive vintages of the World Economic Outlook for emerging markets (EMs) during 1998-2022 to examine the reaction of discretionary fiscal policy to uncertain economic cycle in real-time....

Deutschland erlebt derzeit einen erheblichen Rückgang seines Produktionspotenzials. Wesentliche Ursache ist die demografische Alterung und insbesondere der Eintritt der geburtenstarken Jahrgänge (Baby-Boomer) in den Ruhestand. Das verfügbare Arbeitsvolumen wird darüber hinaus durch niedrige...

The sovereign debt crisis triggered a process of reforms in European economic governance that pushed for technocratic handling of budget decisions following standardized procedures, target measures, and indicators for fiscal monitoring. This shift, aimed at producing more stability and less...

The output gap, while inherently unobservable, plays a pivotal role in informing policymakers due to its significant implications for forecasting inflation rates and understanding the mechanisms of monetary policy transmission. Traditional filters frequently employed in estimating the output gap...

This study estimated Tunisia's potential growth with a Cobb-Douglas production function using an unobservable component model within structural changes context for the period 1989-2023. It investigated the major shocks' effects on the potential growth and its components. In contrast with most...