Despite the fact that many aggregates are nonlinear functions and the aggregation weights of many macroeconomic aggregates are time-varying, much of the literature on forecasting aggregates considers the case of linear aggregates with fixed, time-invariant aggregation weights. In this study a...

The use of large datasets for macroeconomic forecasting has received a great deal of interest recently. Boosting is one possible method of using high-dimensional data for this purpose. It is a stage-wise additive modelling procedure, which, in a linear specification, becomes a variable selection...

Recent articles suggest that a Bayesian vector autoregression (BVAR) with shrinkage is a good forecast device even when the number of variables is large. In this paper we evaluate different variants of the BVAR with respect to their forecast accuracy for euro area real GDP growth and HICP...

Over the last decade, the topic of regional economic forecasting has become increasingly prevalent in academic literature. The most striking problem in this context is data availability at a regional level. However, considerable methodological improvements have been made to address this problem....

In this paper, we propose a framework to evaluate the information content of subjective expert density forecasts using micro data from the ECB's Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF). A key aspect of our analysis is the use of scoring functions which evaluate the entire predictive densities,...

This paper proposes a new method of forecasting euro area quarterly real GDP that uses area-wide indicators, which are derived by optimally pooling the information contained in national indicator series. Following the ideas of predictive modeling, we construct the area-wide indicators by...

In this paper we have assessed an influence of the NYSE Stock Exchange indexes (DJIA and NASDAQ) and European Stock indexes (DAX and FTSE) on the Warsaw Stock Exchange index WIG within a framework of a GARCH model. By applying a procedure of checking predictive quality of econometric models as...

In this study, we systematically evaluate the potential of a bunch of survey-based indicators from different economic branches to forecasting export growth across a multitude of European countries. Our pseudo out-of-sample analyses reveal that the best-performing indicators beat a well-specified...

This paper explores whether professional macroeconomic forecasters manipulate their forecasts to influence voting outcomes. We model a referendum in which a voter chooses between two policies. The voter relies on a forecaster to learn about the macroeconomic consequences of the policies. The...

Biotic factors such as pests create biodiversity effects that increase production risks and decrease land productivity when agriculture becomes more specialized. We show in a Ricardian two-country trade setup that production specialization is incomplete under free trade because of the decrease...