In this paper we suggest the use of an internet job-search indicator (Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample comparison of many forecasting models. With respect to the previous literature we concentrate on the monthly...

The formation of the European Union (EU) is the one of the biggest political – economic events of the last 50 years. The aim of this study is to develop EU economy functioning system dynamic model. Main research method is system dynamics. General scheme of EU economy system dynamic model is...

In Part One of this paper we use the harmonic analogy of a musical octave to analyze mathematic ratios of U.S. real GNP. These ratios are generated by bringing together figures for U.S. real GNP over intervals of time – “spreads of years” – as numerator and denominator in a single...

We evaluate the forecasting performance of six different models for short-term forecasting of Macedonian GDP: 1) ARIMA model; 2) AR model estimated by the Kalman filter; 3) model that explains Macedonian GDP as a function of the foreign demand; 4) small structural model that links GDP components...

Joining the European Union big opportunities in the international markets have opened for Latvia. Paper purpose is to investigate influence of international integration processes on development of economy of Latvia. In the paper Latvian economic indicators before and after entering the EU are...

The Long-Wave theories of Nikolai Kondratiev and others claim to find mathematic waves in economic and other social data which are at present in dispute. Currently the theory is considered outside the scope of mainstream economics under several rationales. Despite the lack of mainstream...

This study sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment surveys, and the expectations derived from them, are relevant to forecasting economic growth and stock returns, and whether they contain information that is orthogonal to macroeconomic and financial data. I examine 16...

Joining the European Union big opportunities in the international markets have opened for Latvia. Paper purpose is to investigate influence of international integration processes on development of economy of Latvia. Latvia's incoming in EU increased the amount of received means from structural...

In any dataset with individual forecasts of economic variables, some forecasters will perform better than others. However, it is possible that these ex post differences reflect sampling variation and thus overstate the ex ante differences between forecasters. In this paper, we present a simple...

This paper, using a threshold vector error-correction (TVECM) model, examines whether BRENT crude spot and futures oil prices are cointegrated. By employing this methodology we are able to evaluate the degree and dynamics of transaction costs resulting from various market imperfections. TVECM...