Reliable and timely information about current economic conditions is crucial for policy makers and expectations formation. This paper demonstrates the efficacy of the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) and the Purchasing Manager Indices (PMI) in anticipating US real economic activity. We...

This paper provides a review which focuses on forecasting using statistical/econometric methods designed for dealing with large data sets.

This paper revisits a number of data-rich prediction methods, like factor models, Bayesian ridge regression and forecast combinations, which are widely used in macroeconomic forecasting, and compares these with a lesser known alternative method: partial least squares regression. Under the...

We compare a number of data-rich prediction methods that are widely used in macroeconomic forecasting with a lesser known alternative: partial least squares (PLS) regression. In this method, linear, orthogonal combinations of a large number of predictor variables are constructed such that the...

We propose a method to incorporate information from Dynamic Stochastic General Equilibrium (DSGE) models into Dynamic Factor Analysis. The method combines a procedure previously applied for Bayesian Vector Autoregressions and a Gibbs Sampling approach for Dynamic Factor Models. The factors in...

This document analyzes inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, and GDP growth forecasts from the monthly Survey of Specialists in Economics from the Private Sector, maintained by Banco de M'exico. The study concentrates on the mean across forecasters for the period from January 1995 to April...

We apply the boosting estimation method to investigate to what ex-tent and at what horizons macroeconomic time series have nonlinearpredictability coming from their own history. Our results indicate thatthe U.S. macroeconomic time series have more exploitable nonlinearpredictability than...

This document analyzes inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, and GDP growth forecasts from the monthly Survey of Specialists in Economics from the Private Sector, maintained by Banco de México. The study concentrates on the mean across forecasters for the period from January 1995 to April...

We have studied the relationship between Receiver Operating Characteristics (ROC) and Precision-Recall Curve (PRC) both analytically and using a real-life empirical example of yield spread as a predictor of recessions. We show that false alarm rate in ROC and inverted precision in PRC are...

This document analyzes inflation, exchange rate, interest rate, and GDP growth forecasts from the monthly Survey of Professional Forecasters, maintained by Banco de México. The study concentrates on the mean across forecasters for the period from January 1995 to April 2008. Their efficiency in...