We develop a small-scale dynamic factor model for the Swiss economy allowing for non-linearities by means of a two-state Markov-chain. The selection of an appropriate set of indicators utilizes a combinatorial algorithm. The model's forecasting performance is as good as that of peers with richer...

The German economy is an important economic driver in the Euro-area in terms of gross domestic product, labour force and international integration. We provide a state of the art estimate of the German output gap between 1995 and 2021 and present a nowcasting scheme that accurately predicts the...

The Great Recession and the subsequent period of subdued GDP growth in most advanced economies have highlighted the need for macroeconomic forecasters to account for sudden and deep recessions, periods of higher macroeconomic volatility, and fluctuations in trend GDP growth. In this paper, we...

We estimate a Markow-switching dynamic factor model with three states based on six leading business cycle indicators for Germany preselected from a broader set using the Elastic Net soft-thresholding rule. The three states represent expansions, normal recessions and severe recessions. We show...