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...

The Omicron wave of the coronavirus has impacted economies worldwide, resulting in a bleak winter. Although restrictions on economic and public life have been less severe than at the beginning of 2021 in many places-mainly due to the progress of vaccination campaigns-and there are prospects of...

We develop novel forecasting methods for panel data with heterogeneous parameters and examine them together with existing approaches. We conduct a systematic comparison of their predictive accuracy in settings with different cross-sectional (N) and time (T) dimensions and varying degrees of...

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 paper describes a dynamic factor model for the Maltese economy. The model mainly serves as a tool to timely provide the Central Bank of Malta with nowcasts as well as short-term forecasts of the growth rate of the real gross domestic product, which in turn are used as an input in the...

This paper describes the semi-structural model DORY used by Norges Bank as a link between raw data, sector experts and the core policy model NEMO. While the primary objective in NEMO is to analyse business cycle fluctuations and monetary policy, DORY is used to identify the underlying trends in...

This chapter describes and quantifies fiscal risk in advanced and developing economies. Forecast errors in gross domestic product (GDP) growth explain nearly half of fiscal risk in advanced economies. However, errors in growth forecasts are less important in explaining fiscal risk in low- and...

We forecast economic activity in Argentina on a quarterly real-time basis using dynamic factors models (DFM) (Blanco et al. 2018) and evaluate their forecasting performance during the COVID19 pandemic of 2020. We compare the results of forecasts based on a pre-pandemic estimation of the...

Arbetstagarorganisationernas förväntningar på lönetillväxten ligger systematiskt högre än arbetsgivarorganisationernas i den så kallade Prospera-enkäten. I denna artikel analyseras dessa skillnader ekonometriskt. Genom att beakta respondenternas förväntningar rörande inflation och...

This paper investigates the performance of the IMF WEO growth forecast revisions across different horizons and country groups. We find that: (i) growth revisions in horizons closer to the actual are generally larger, more volatile, and more negative; (ii) on average, growth revisions are in the...

The Covid-19 epidemic affected the ability of traditional forecasting models to produce reliable scenarios for the evolution of economic activity. We combine macroeconomic variables with epidemiological indicators to account for the Covid-19 shock and predict the short-term evolution of Italian...

We resuscitated the mixed-frequency vector autoregression (MF-VAR) developed in Schorfheide and Song (2015, JBES) to generate macroeconomic forecasts for the U.S. during the COVID-19 pandemic in real time. The model combines eleven time series observed at two frequencies: quarterly and monthly....

This paper analyses the evidence of job polarization in developing and emerging economies. We carry out an extensive literature review, revealing that job polarization in these countries is only incipient compared to other advanced economies. We then examine the possible moderating aspects...

Purpose: The main goal of this study is to exact an optimal forecasting method by answering the research question: which is the best model for capturing short-term seasonal components of passenger traffic in Greek coastal shipping? Design/methodology/approach: There are not a lot of scientific...

In the presence of instabilities in economics, such as the global financial crisis in 2008 and the recent COVID-19 pandemic, we face challenges in forecasting macroeconomic and financial variables. Recently forecasters have turned their attention to Machine Learning (ML), which has become an...

Flood occurred due to heavy and uneven rainfall which damages human lives and economic growth, destruction of property and vandalization of environment. Prediction of flood loss reduces property damages, yield of crop and loss of life. Development of early warning system reduced disaster risk....

Electricity consumption is China's main energy consumption and an important indicator of economic performance. Forecasting electricity consumption plays an increasingly important role in economic development. In order to solve this problem, a fractional order discrete Verhulst model was proposed...

In this paper we use bootstrap approach to test the null hypothesis thatall forecasters in the U.S. Surveys of Professional Forecasters (SPF) have equalability. Our bootstrap procedure captures any potential cross-sectional andserial correlation in the forecast errors while preserving the...

Governments, central banks and private companies make extensive use of expert and market-based forecasts in their decision-making processes. These forecasts can be affected by terrorism, a factor that should be considered by decision-makers. We focus on terrorism as a mostly endogenously driven...

Due to the occurrence of fiscal foresight, conventional fiscal VAR models are naturally inclined to suffer from the phenomena of nonfundamentalness and noncausality, which may imply biased estimates. These problems have been widely identified in the fiscal literature, however until recently...

In economics and statistics, there are many various indicators that measure the volume of national production. These indicators are used in making important decisions about economic stability or instability in the country. The most informative of these indicators is gross domestic product (GDP)....

Upon arrival of macroeconomic news, economic agents update their beliefs about the long-run fundamentals of the economy. I show that signals about the agents’ long-run expectations, proxied by the economic outlook revisions of professional forecasters, convey sufficient information to identify...

We develop novel forecasting methods for panel data with heterogeneous parameters and examine them together with existing approaches. We conduct a systematic comparison of their predictive accuracy in settings with different cross-sectional (N) and time (T) dimensions and varying degrees of...

This paper investigates whether the use of broader Divisia monetary aggregates improves money's performance in forecasting economic activity within a time-varying parameter vector autoregressive ( TVP - VAR ) framework. We evaluate entire predictive densities from several alternative models of...

The COVID-19 pandemic has led to a severe global recession with differential impacts within and across countries. This paper examines the possible persistent effects (scarring) of the pandemic on the economy and the channels through which they may occur. History suggests that deep recessions...

In this paper we propose a hierarchical shrinkage approach for multi-country VAR models. In implementation, we consider three different scale mixtures of Normals priors — specifically, Horseshoe, Normal- Gamma, and Normal-Gamma-Gamma priors. We provide new theoretical results for the...

Economic growth is a frequently analyzed aspect, both from theoretical and empirical standpoint, under the impact of the influence factors, while the issue of economic growth was studied by applying different methods and obtaining different results. In the case of EU28, the problem of economic...

We analyze the causes of the apparent bias towards optimism in growth forecasts underpinning the design of IMF-supported programs, which has been documented in the literature. We find that financial variables observable to forecasters are strong predictors of growth forecast errors. The greater...

Do governments in Latin America tend to be optimistic when preparing budgetary projections? We address this question by constructing a novel dataset of the authorities’ fiscal forecasts in six Latin American economies using data from annual budget documents over the period 2000-2018. In turn,...

Purpose - In recent years, China's marine industry has maintained rapid growth in general, and marine-related economic activities have continued to improve. The purpose of this research is to analyze the basic situation of China's marine economy development, identify the problems therein,...

Dynamic factor models (DFMs), which assume the existence of a small number of unobserved underlying factors common to a large number of variables, are very popular among empirical macroeconomists. Factors can be extracted using either nonparametric principal components or parametric Kalman...

The aim of this paper is to evaluate current quarterly nowcasts of the gross domestic product in Bosnia and Herzegovina based on the flow of available monthly economic indicators that are available during the same quarter. The nowcasting performance indicates that it is worthwhile to include a...