The primary aim of the paper is to place current methodological discussions on empirical modeling contrasting the 'theory first' versus the 'data first' perspectives in the context of a broader methodological framework with a view to constructively appraise them. In particular, the paper focuses...

Das Papier untersucht die Rolle von Frühindikatoren bei der Erstellung von Konjunkturprognosen. Gegenstand der Analyse sind die Fragen: Welche Kriterien sollten Frühindikatoren generell erfüllen bzw. was sollten Frühindikatoren leisten? Inwieweit erfüllen die gängigen Indikatoren diese...

We use a range of simple models and 22 years of real-time data vintages for the U.S. to assess the difficulties of estimating the equilibrium real interest rate in real time. Model specifications differ according to whether the time-varying equilibrium real rate is linked to trend growth, and...

In this paper we propose exact likelihood-based mean-variance efficiency tests of the market portfolio in the context of Capital Asset Pricing Model (CAPM), allowing for a wide class of error distributions which include normality as a special case. These tests are developed in the framework of...

This paper seeks to assess comovements and heterogeneity in the euro area by fitting a nonstationary dynamic factor model (Bai and Ng, 2004), augmented with a structural factor setup (Forni and Reichlin, 1998), to a large set of euro-area macroeconomic variables observed between 1982 and 2003....

This paper surveys existing factor forecast applications for real economic activity and inflation by means of a meta-analysis and contributes to the current debate on the determinants of the forecast performance of large-scale dynamic factor models relative to other models. We find that, on...

In this paper, we put DSGE forecasts in competition with factor forecasts. We focus on these two models since they represent nicely the two opposing forecasting philosophies. The DSGE model on the one hand has a strong theoretical economic background; the factor model on the other hand is mainly...

Any serious empirical study of factor substitutability has to allow the data to display complementarity as well as substitutability. The standard approach reflecting this idea is a translog specification – this is also the approach used by numerous studies analyzing the relative capital-skill...

What happens to demand if a magazine launches a website? This question is empirically analyzed for the German women?s magazine market, a particularly large segment of the German magazine where fierce competition is reigning. Models for differentiated product demand are estimated on panel data...

This paper compares technologies across space and time on the basis of factual and counterfactual substitution elasticities and argues that differences in estimated substitution elasticities should be decomposed into two counterfactual components. While the first component is designed to...