The ifo Institute is Germany's largest business survey provider, with the ifo Business Climate Germany as one of the most important leading indicators for gross domestic product. However, the ifo Business Survey is not solely limited to the Business Climate and also delivers a multitude of...

We apply textual analysis tools to the narratives that accompany Federal Reserve Board economic forecasts to measure the degree of optimism versus pessimism expressed in those narratives. Text sentiment is strongly correlated with the accompanying economic point forecasts, positively for GDP...

This analysis investigates the predictive power of the most important leading indicators for the German economy, which are provided by the ifo Institute and IHS Markit. We conduct an out-of-sample, real-time forecast experiment for growth of gross domestic product and growth of gross value added...

This paper develops an estimable hybrid model that combines the theoretical rigor of a micro-founded DSGE model with the flexibility of an atheoretical VAR model. The model is estimated via maximum likelihood technique based on quarterly data on real Gross National Product (GNP), consumption,...

The quality of the OECD's Economic Outlook growth projections was last evaluated in-house at the peak of the previous business cycle, calling for a reassessment. This paper analyses the OECD's annual GDP growth projections for the G7 countries over the period 1991-2006 and compares them with the...

The probability that an individual participates in the labor force declines precipitously beyond age 50. This feature of labor supply suggests that ongoing shifts in the age distribution of the population will put substantial downward pressure on the aggregate labor force participation rate....

This is a course material for an introductory course in Probability and Statistics for Engineering and Management. It is part of some course notes for my courses in Spanish on that subject. The draft of the book is Apuntes de Probabilidad y Estadiacute;stica para Ingenieriacute;a y...

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...

We propose a predictor of market bubbles, crashes and corrections that is based on the relationship between the following two ratios: (Market value of the firm compared to its intrinsic value, MV/IV) and the (return on capital of the firm versus its cost of capital, R/C*). We apply the model to...

Payment systems track economic transactions and therefore could be considered important indicators of economic activity. This paper describes the available monthly data on the retail settlement system for Italy and selects some of them for short-term forecasting. Using a mixed frequency factor...