This paper applies the factor model proposed by Giannone, Reichlin, and Small (2005) on a large data set to nowcast (i.e. current-quarter forecast) the annual growth rate of China's quarterly GDP. The data set contains 189 indicator series of several categories, such as prices, industrial...

The accuracy of real-time forecasts of macroeconomic variables that are subject to revisions may crucially depend on the choice of data used to compare the forecasts against. We put forward a flexible time - varying parameter regression framework to obtain early estimates of the final value of...

This paper focuses on testing non-stationary real-time data for forecastability, i.e., whether data revisions reduce noise or are news, by putting data releases in vector-error correction forms. To deal with historical revisions which affect the whole vintage of time series due to redefinitions,...

In this article we evaluate the Central Bank of Chile annual GDP growth forecasts during the period 1991-2009 using a novel real-time database. We compare the Central Bank of Chile forecasts with those of the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF), Consensus Forecasts, and simple time-series...

We develop a small-scale dynamic factor model for the Swiss economy allowing for non-linearities by means of a two-state Markov-chain. The selection of an appropriate set of indicators utilizes a combinatorial algorithm. The model's forecasting performance is as good as that of peers with richer...

The national accounts provide a coherent and exaustive description of the current state of the economy, but are available at the quarterly frequency and are released with a nonignorable publication lag. The paper proposes and illustrates a method for nowcasting and forecasting the sixteen main...

The national accounts provide a coherent and exaustive description of the current state of the economy, but are available at the quarterly frequency and are released with a nonignorable publication lag. The paper proposes and illustrates a method for nowcasting and forecasting the sixteen main...

We develop a small-scale dynamic factor model for the Swiss economy based on an appropriately selected set of indicators. The resulting business cycle factor is in striking accordance with historical Swiss business cycle fluctuations. Our proposed model demonstrates a remarkable performance in...

This paper compares the ability of several econometric and machine learning methods to nowcast GDP in (pseudo) real-time. The analysis takes the example of Dutch GDP over the years 1992-2018 using a broad data set of monthly indicators. It discusses the forecast accuracy but also analyzes the...

Economic policies are generally formulated on the basis of data available in real time, which might subsequently be revised. Implicitly, the possibility of data revisions creates an element of uncertainty around the very same data driving policy decisions. Given that such uncertainty could be...