Globalization has led to huge increases in import volumes, increasing the importance of imports for total output. Since imports are a volatile component, they are difficult to forecast and strongly influence the forecast accuracy of gross domestic product. We introduce the first leading...

In this study, we evaluate whether survey-based indicators produce lower forecast errors for export growth than indicators obtained from hard data such as price and cost competitiveness measures. Our pseudo out-of-sample analyses and forecastencompassing tests reveal that survey-based indicators...

In this paper we evaluate the forecasting performance of employment expectations for employment growth in 15 European states. Our data cover the period from the first quarter 1998 to the fourth quarter 2012. With in-sample analyses and pseudo out-of-sample exercises, we find that for most of the...

Solid budgets serve as important quality signals for the electorate. Politicians might therefore face an incentive to influence tax revenue forecasts, which are widely regarded as a key element for budget setups. Looking at the time period from 1996 to 2012, in this study we systematically...

To date, only annual information on economic activity is published for the 16 German states. In this paper, we calculate quarterly regional GDP estimates for the period between 1995 to 2020, thereby improving the regional database in Germany. The new data set will regularly be updated when...

In this paper, we ask whether it is possible to forecast gross value-added (GVA) and its sectoral subcomponents at the regional level. With an autoregressive distributed lag model we forecast total and sectoral GVA for one German state (Saxony) with more than 300 indicators from different...