Since the advent of standard national accounts data over 60 years ago, economists have traditionally relied on monthly or quarterly data supplied by central statistical agencies for macroeconomic modelling and forecasting. However, technological advances of the past several years have resulted...

This paper derives forecasts for euro area real GDP growth based on a bottom up approach from the production side. That is, GDP is forecast via the forecasts of value added across the different branches of activity, which is quite new in the literature. Linear regression models in the form of...

The paper provides probability estimates of the state of the GDP growth. A regime-switching model defines the probability of the Greek GDP being in boom or recession. Then probit models extract the predictive information of a set of explanatory (economic and financial) variables regarding the...

Using U.S. real-time data, we show that changes in the unemployment rate unexplained by Okun's Law have significant predictive power for GDP data revisions. A positive (negative) error in Okun's Law in real time implies that GDP will be later revised to show less (more) growth than initially...

Building on a mixed data sampling (MIDAS) model we evaluate the predictive power of a variety of monthly macroeconomic indicators for forecasting quarterly Chinese GDP growth. We iterate the evaluation over forecast horizons from 370 days to 1 day prior to GDP release and track the release days...

This paper provides a framework for the early assessment of current U.S. nominal GDP growth, which has been considered a potential new monetary policy target. The nowcasts are computed using the exact amount of information that policy-makers have available at the time predictions are made....

The accuracy of macroeconomic forecast depends on various factors, most importantly the mix of analytical methods used by the individual forecasters, the way that their personal experience is shaping their identification strategies, but also their efficiency in translating new information into...

In this paper we propose a new real-time forecasting model for euro area GDP growth, D€STINY, which attempts to bridge the existing gap in the literature between large- and small-scale dynamic factor models. By adopting a disaggregated modelling approach, D€STINY uses most of the information...

This paper explores the extent to which commodity prices can predict GDP growth rates of various countries using indices of 27 commonly traded commodity futures. Commodity returns can strongly predict the next quarter's GDP growth, while the basis shows a reasonable level of predictive power....

This paper is a follow-up to a study that ranked California last in terms of business friendliness. The present paper provides some reasons why the per capita GDP in California is going up even though thousands of business are leaving the state because of its high taxes and burdensome regulations