This paper evaluates the ability of autoregressive models, professional forecasters, and models that incorporate unemployment flows to forecast the unemployment rate. We pay particular attention to flows-based approaches - the more reduced-form approach of Barnichon and Nekarda (2012) and the...

This paper evaluates the ability of autoregressive models, professional forecasters, and models that incorporate unemployment flows to forecast the unemployment rate. We pay particular attention to flows-based approaches – the more reduced-form approach of Barnichon and Nekarda (2012) and the...

This paper evaluates the ability of autoregressive models, professional forecasters, and models that leverage unemployment flows to forecast the unemployment rate. We pay particular attention to flows-based approaches — the more reduced-form approach of Barnichon and Nekarda (2012) and the...

The aim of the paper is to analyze the ability of internet activity, what has been called Google econometrics, to predict unemployment in Spain. We include a new predictor for Spanish unemployment based on internet information provided by Google Trends. Using monthly data from January 2004 to...

We developed a factor regression model, nicknamed “GUPTY”, to study the business cycles, and their relation to the monetary policy. It covers several major macro-economic quantities, including unemployment rate, GDP, and weekly payrolls in the U.S. after WWII. The model postulates that these...

In this paper we study international linkages when forecasting unemployment rates in a sample of 24 OECD economies. We propose a Global Unemployment Factor (GUF) and test its predictive ability considering in-sample and out-of-sample exercises. Our main results indicate that the predictive...

Euro area labour market variables are published with a considerable lag, longer than in the case of real GDP. We develop a suite of models to provide a more timely estimate (nowcast) of euro area quarterly employment growth based on a broad range of monthly indicators. The suite includes a batch...

Euro area labour market variables are published with a considerable lag, longer than in the case of real GDP. We develop a suite of models to provide a more timely estimate (nowcast) of euro area quarterly employment growth based on a broad range of monthly indicators. The suite includes a batch...

We suggest the use of an Internet job-search indicator (the Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample forecasting comparison analyzing many models that adopt both our preferred leading indicator (GI), the more standard...