We propose a useful way to predict building permits in the US, exploiting rich real-time data from web search queries. The time series on building permits is usually considered as a leading indicator of economic activity in the construction sector. Nevertheless, new data on building permits are...

I present evidence of systematically heterogeneous expectations, a violation of the Rational Expectations Hypothesis. I demonstrate that the expectations of different gender and wealth cohorts have different relative abilities to predict inflation, interest rates, unemployment, income, stock...

The political transition in the Arab Spring countries has been accompanied by a deterioration of economic and financial indicators like the Tunisian case. Therefore, this paper aims to get a deeper understanding the nature of the rule that reflects the behavior of the Tunisian monetary authority...

We construct risks around consensus forecasts of real GDP growth, unemployment, and inflation. We find that risks are time-varying, asymmetric, and partly predictable. Tight financial conditions forecast downside growth risk, upside unemployment risk, and increased uncertainty around the...

Many structural break and regime-switching models have been used with macroeconomic and financial data. In this paper, we develop an extremely flexible parametric model that accommodates virtually any of these specifications - and does so in a simple way that allows for straightforward Bayesian...

Modeling the unconditional distribution of returns on exchange rate and measuring its tails area are issues in the finance literature that have been studied extensively by parametric and non-parametric estimation procedures. However, a conflict of robustness is derived from them because the time...

An error correction model of investment in Papua New Guinea is estimated by the Cochrane-Orcutt method. The determinants of investment are found to be the national income, the real interest rate and net capital flows. The government policy of maintaining a low real interest rate encourages...

In this paper we introduce a “power booster factor” for out-of-sample tests of predictability. The relevant econometric environment is one in which the econometrician wants to compare the population Mean Squared Prediction Errors (MSPE) of two models: one big nesting model, and another...

Using Gretl, I apply ARMA, Vector ARMA, VAR, state-space model with a Kalman filter, transfer-function and intervention models, unit root tests, cointegration test, volatility models (ARCH, GARCH, ARCH-M, GARCH-M, Taylor-Schwert GARCH, GJR, TARCH, NARCH, APARCH, EGARCH) to analyze quarterly time...

Aggregate financial conditions indices (FCIs) are constructed to fulfill two aims: (i) The FCIs should resemble non-model based composite indices in that their composition is adequately invariant for concatenation during regular updates; (ii) the concatenated FCIs should outperform as leading...