This study develops a new monthly euro Area‐wide Leading Indicator (ALI) for the euro area business cycle. It derives the composite ALI by applying a deviation cycle methodology with a one‐sided band pass filter and choosing nine leading series. Our main findings are that i) the applied...

Dynamic stochastic general equilibrium models have recently become standard tools for policy-oriented analyses. Nevertheless, their forecasting properties are still barely explored. We fill this gap by comparing the quality of real-time forecasts from a richly-specified DSGE model to those from...

The dynamic behaviour of the term structure of interest rates is difficult to replicate with models, and even models with a proven track record of empirical performance have underperformed since the early 2000s. On the other hand, survey expectations are accurate predictors of yields, but only...

The paper shows that there is a substantial degree of heterogeneity in forecast accuracy among Fed watchers. Based on a novel database for 268 professional forecasters since 1999, the average forecast error of FOMC decisions varies 5 to 10 basis points between the best and worst-performers...

Using OECD composite leading indicators (CLI), we assess empirically whether the ability of the country- specific CLIs to predict economic activity has diminished in recent years, e.g. due to rapid advances in globalisation. Overall, we find evidence that the CLI encompasses useful information...

The paper investigates a set of possible leading indicators for Euroland's business cycle using aggregated quarterly data. The theoretical plausibility, the behavior at business cycle turning points and the mean leads are analyzed. Furthermore, evidence from cross-correlations and...

Since 1990 the Netherlands Bureau for Economic Policy Analysis (CPB) uses a leading indicator in preparing short-term forecasts for the Dutch economy. This paper describes some recent methodological innovations as well as the current structure and empirical results of the revised CPB leading...

Die vorliegende Bewertung der Treffgenauigkeit von Prognosen sowie von vorläufigen amtlichen Berechnungen zur wirtschaftlichen Entwicklung in Deutschland zeigt, dass frühe Prognosen nicht nur sehr ungenau sind, sondern auch systematisch zu optimistisch ausfallen. Die mehr als ein Jahr im...

Using data from the ECB's Survey of Professional Forecasters, we investigate the reporting practices of survey participants by comparing their point predictions and the mean/median/mode of their probability forecasts. We find that the individual point predictions, on average, tend to be biased...

We use a newly available dataset of euro area quarterly national accounts fiscal data and construct multi-variate, state-space mixed-frequencies models for the government deficit, revenue and expenditure in order to assess its information content and its potential use for fiscal forecasting and...