This paper examines the consequences of using "real-time" data for business cycle analysis in Germany based on a novel data set covering quarterly real output data from 1968 to 2001. Real-time output gaps are calculated. They differ considerably from their counterparts based on the most recent...

Summary In recent years some papers have been published that deal with the forecasting performance of indicators for the German economy. The real-time aspect, however, was largely neglected. This article analyses the information content of some ifo indicators (the business climate index for the...

Output gap revisions can be large even after many years. Real-time reliability tests might therefore be sensitive to the choice of the final output gap vintage that the real-time estimates are compared to. This is the case for the Federal Reserve's output gap. When accounting for revisions in...

This paper examines the consequences of using "real-time" data for business cycle analysis in Germany based on a novel data set covering quarterly real output data from 1968 to 2001. Real-time output gaps are calculated. They differ considerably from their counterparts based on the most recent...

We develop a formal statistical approach to investigate the possibility that leading indicator variables have different lead times at business cycle peaks and troughs. For this purpose, we propose a novel Markov switching vector autoregressive model, where economic growth and leading indicators...

Output gap revisions can be large even after many years. Real-time reliability tests might therefore be sensitive to the choice of the final output gap vintage that the real-time estimates are compared to. This is the case for the Federal Reserve's output gap. When accounting for revisions in...