In this paper we evaluate the role of a set of variables as leading indicators for Euro-area inflation and GDP growth. Our evaluation is based on using the variables in the ECB Euro-area model database, plus a set of similar variables for the US. We compare the forecasting performance of each...

The EU's macroeconomic surveillance mechanism, namely the Macroeconomic Imbalance Procedure (MIP), is based on the so-called Scoreboard, which comprises a set of indicators that serve as a signalling device for potentially harmful macroeconomic developments. We first evaluate the early warning...

This paper analyzes the possibility to generate indeterminacy and equilibria with short-run non-neutrality of money in a model with flexible prices, constant returns to scale in production and constant money growth rules. The model recovers previous results in the literature as particular cases....

We use matched point and density forecasts of output growth and inflation from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters to derive measures of forecast uncertainty, forecast dispersion, and forecast accuracy. We construct uncertainty measures from aggregate density functions as well as from...

We use matched point and density forecasts of output growth and inflation from the ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters to derive measures of forecast uncertainty, forecast dispersion, and forecast accuracy. We construct uncertainty measures from aggregate density functions as well as from...

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...

This study evaluates oil price forecasts based on their economic significance for macroeconomic predictions. More specifically, we first use the current state-of-the-art frameworks to forecast monthly oil prices and subsequently we use these forecasts, as oil price assumptions, to predict...

A financial conditions index (FCI) is designed to summarise the state of financial markets. We construct two with UK data. The first is the first principal component (PC) of a set of financial indicators. The second comes from a new approach taking information from a large set of macroeconomic...

Building on the literature on regularization and dimension reduction methods, we have developed a quarterly forecasting model for euro area GDP. This method consists in bridging quarterly national accounts data using factors extracted from a large panel of monthly and quarterly series including...

The paper deals with the estimation of monthly indicators of economic activity for the Euro area and its largest member countries that possess the following attributes: relevance, representativeness and timeliness. Relevance is obtained by referring our monthly indicators to gross domestic...