This paper investigates the performance of Financial Condition Indexes (FCIs) in forecasting four key macroeconomic variables of EU economies. A wide range of carefully selected financial indicators include Rates and Spreads, Stock Market Indicators and Macroeconomic Quantities. The results...

This paper compares the mixed-data sampling (MIDAS) and mixed-frequency VAR (MF-VAR) approaches to model speci…cation in the presence of mixed-frequency data, e.g., monthly and quarterly series. MIDAS leads to parsimonious models based on exponential lag polynomials for the coe¢ cients,...

Objective: The objective of the article is to prove the empirical and predictive value of the aggregate opinions of businesses and households for expanding cyclical macroeconomic data in Russia, especially during the coronavirus shocks. Research Design & Methods: We use qualitative information...

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...

This paper proposes a new method of forecasting euro area quarterly real GDP that uses areawide indicators, which are derived by optimally pooling the information contained in national indicator series. Following the ideas of predictive modeling, we construct the area-wide indicators by...

Economic policy makers, international organisations and private-sector forecasters commonly use short-term forecasts of real GDP growth based on monthly indicators, such as industrial production, retail sales and confidence surveys. An assessment of the reliability of such tools and of the...

We investigate the usefulness of the European Commission confidence indicators in forecasting real GDP growth rates in the short-run in selected euro areas countries (Belgium, Spain, Germany, France, Italy and the Netherlands) which account for almost 90% of the euro area. We estimate a linear...

The resurgence of the pandemic and renewed lockdowns have slowed the recovery of the global economy, but the overall losses will be less severe than after the first coronavirus wave in spring 2020. Industry in particular continues to develop well. In contrast, retail trade and personal services...