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 analyses the real-time forecasting performance of the New Keynesian DSGE model of Galí, Smets, and Wouters (2012) estimated on euro area data. It investigates to what extent forecasts of inflation, GDP growth and unemployment by professional forecasters improve the forecasting...

In this paper we evaluate whether the accuracy of Finnish unemployment rate forecasts can be improved by utilising the information in the flows into and out of unemployment. We compare and contrast different methodologies for constructing the flows. Our results indicate that Bayesian vector...

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...

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...

This paper considers a sticky price model with a cash-in-advance constraint where agents forecast inflation rates with the help of econometric models. Agents use least squares learning to estimate two competing models of which one is consistent with rational expectations once learning is...

This paper analyzes the performance of the monthly economic policy uncertainty (EPU) index in predicting recessionary regimes of the (quarterly) U.S. GDP. In this regard, the authors apply a mixed-frequency Markov-switching vector autoregressive (MF-MSVAR) model, and compare its in-sample and...