The forecast of world economic growth plays a key role in the conduct of Canadian monetary policy. In this context, the authors study the usefulness of the monthly Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMIs) in predicting short-term real GDP growth in the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and...

The Great Recession has inspired renewed interest in analyzing the behaviour of the economy during recession episodes, and how these temporary events can shape the productive structure of the economy for long periods. Most of the existing literature focuses on recessions at the aggregate level....