We consider simple methods to improve the growth nowcasts and forecasts obtained by mixed frequency MIDAS and UMIDAS models with a variety of indicators during the Covid-19 crisis and recovery period, such as combining forecasts across various specifications for the same model and/or across...

The recovery of the world economy is evolving with a considerable degree of heterogeneity across countries. While the recovery in emerging countries, in particular in Eastern Asia, was very pronounced, it was disappointingly slow in most advanced economies. For example, the upturn was quite...

Based on evidence gathered from a newly built large macroeconomic data set for the UK, labeled UK-MD and comparable to similar datasets for the US and Canada, it seems the most promising avenue for forecasting during the pandemic is to allow for general forms of nonlinearity by using machine...