We distinguish between three different ways of using real-time data to estimate forecasting equations and argue that the most frequently used approach should generally be avoided. The point is illustrated with a model that uses monthly observations of industrial production, employment, and...

The authors forecast current-quarter real GDP growth using monthly data that would have been available to an analyst in real time. They demonstrate that using real-time data is of major importance both when estimating GDP forecasting models and when evaluating their performance. Moreover, the...