Obgleich es zahlreiche Institutionen gibt, die das deutsche Bruttoinlandsprodukt vorhersagen, mangelt es aktuell an sogenannten "Nowcasting"-Modellen, deren Prognosegüte mit jedem neu verfügbaren, das deutsche Bruttoinlandsprodukt beeinflussenden Datenpunkt verbessert wird. In der folgenden...

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the heterogeneity of recessions inmonthly U.S. coincident and leading indicator variables. Univariate Markovswitchingmodels indicate that it is appropriate to allow for two distinct recessionregimes, corresponding with ‘mild’ and ‘severe’...

This paper conducts an empirical analysis of the heterogeneity of recessions in monthly U.S. coincident and leading indicator variables. Univariate Markovswitching models indicate that it is appropriate to allow for two distinct recession regimes, corresponding with 'mild' and 'severe'...

Nowcasting has been a challenge in the recent economic crisis. We introduce the Toll Index, a new monthly indicator for business cycle forecasting and demonstrate its relevance using German data. The index measures the monthly transportation activity performed by heavy transport vehicles across...

Business tendency survey indicators are widely recognized as a key instrument for business cycle forecasting. Their leading indicator property is assessed with regard to forecasting industrial production in Russia and Germany. For this purpose, vector autoregressive (VAR) models are specified...

In this paper, we assess the accuracy of macroeconomic forecasts at the regional level using a unique data set at quarterly frequency. We forecast gross domestic product (GDP) for two German states (Free State of Saxony and Baden-Württemberg) and Eastern Germany. We overcome the problem of a...

The economic forecasts for Germany in the period 2001 to 2003 grossly missed reality. Forecasters estimated an average annual growth rate of 1.6 per cent, but real GDP actually grew by only 0.3 per cent per annum. In 2003 the real GDP in Germany even shrank by 0.1 per cent. Forecasters tend to...

Based on a panel of German professional forecasts for 1970 to 2003 we find that growth and inflation forecasts are unbiased and weakly, but not strongly efficient. Besides the effect of diverging forecasting dates, no other substantial differences in forecasting quality are found among...