This Paper uses annual data spanning 1870 to 1930 on a set of variables correlated with business conditions to construct an index of real economic activity in Switzerland. We extract an estimate of the common component of the data series using principal components analysis and the unobservable...

This paper studies the business cycle features of the transportation sector using dynamic factor models. The transportation reference cycles peak ahead of the economic cycles, but lag by a few months at troughs. The asymmetric relationship between these two suggests the usefulness of...

This paper proposes a new model-based method to obtain a coincident indicator for the business cycle. A dynamic factor model with trend components and a common cycle component is considered which can be estimated using standard maximum likelihood methods. The multivariate unobserved components...

The G-20 Data Gaps Initiative has called for the IMF to develop standard measures of tail risk, which we identify in this paper with systemic risk. To understand the conditions under which tail risk is present, it is first necessary to develop a measure of what constitutes a systemic stress, or...

The paper studies regularised direct filter approach as a tool for high-dimensional filtering and real-time signal extraction. It is shown that the regularised filter is able to process high-dimensional data sets by controlling for effective degrees of freedom and that it is computationally...

The paper proposes a new real-time unrevised indicator tracking medium-to-long-term component in the quarterly growth of the euro area GDP. The new indicator is based on recently developed real-time filtration methodology, the multivariate direct filter approach, applied to selected business and...

We incorporate factors extracted from a large panel of macroeconomic time series in the predictions of two signals related to real economic activity: business cycle fluctuations and the medium- to long-run component of output growth. The latter is simply output growth short of fluctuations with...

This paper proposes a new model-based method to obtain a coincident indicator for the business cycle. A dynamic factor model with trend components and a common cycle component is considered which can be estimated using standard maximum likelihood methods. The multivariate unobserved components...