Forecasting economic growth in the euro area during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession

"We evaluate forecasts for the euro area in data-rich and ‘data-lean’ environments by comparing three different approaches: a simple PMI model based on Purchasing Managers’ Indices (PMIs), a dynamic factor model with euro area data, and a dynamic factor model with data from the euro plus data f...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Lombardi, Marco J., Maier, Philipp
Institution:ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
Format: TEXT
Language:English
Published: Frankfurt am Main 2011
ECB
Subjects:
Online Access:https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19136475124919546579-Forecasting-economic-growth-in.htm
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author Lombardi, Marco J.
Maier, Philipp
author_facet Lombardi, Marco J.
Maier, Philipp
collection Library items
description "We evaluate forecasts for the euro area in data-rich and ‘data-lean’ environments by comparing three different approaches: a simple PMI model based on Purchasing Managers’ Indices (PMIs), a dynamic factor model with euro area data, and a dynamic factor model with data from the euro plus data from national economies (pseudo-real time data). We estimate backcasts, nowcasts and forecasts for GDP, components of GDP, and GDP of all individual euro area members, and examine forecasts for periods of low and high economic volatility (more specifically, we consider 2002-2007, which falls into the ‘Great Moderation’, and the ‘Great Recession’ 2008- 2009). We find that all models consistently beat naive AR benchmarks, and overall, the dynamic factor model tends to outperform the PMI model (at times by a wide margin). However, accuracy of the dynamic factor model can be uneven (forecasts for some countries have large errors), with the PMI model dominating clearly for some countries or over some horizons. This is particularly pronounced over the Great Recession, where the dynamic factor model dominates the PMI model for backcasts, but has considerable difficulties beating the PMI model for nowcasts. This suggests that survey-based measures can have considerable advantages in responding to changes during very volatile periods, whereas factor models tend to be more sluggish to adjust."
format TEXT
id 19136475124919546579_2eb9c166ef584f658a0e62d35e3c773b
institution ETUI-European Trade Union Institute
is_hierarchy_id 19136475124919546579_2eb9c166ef584f658a0e62d35e3c773b
is_hierarchy_title Forecasting economic growth in the euro area during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession
language English
physical 48 p.
Digital
publishDate 2011
publisher Frankfurt am Main
ECB
spellingShingle Lombardi, Marco J.
Maier, Philipp
economic forecast
economic growth
economic model
economic recession
macroeconomics
Forecasting economic growth in the euro area during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession
thumbnail https://www.labourline.org/Image_prev.jpg?Archive=112293593047
title Forecasting economic growth in the euro area during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession
topic economic forecast
economic growth
economic model
economic recession
macroeconomics
url https://www.labourline.org/KENTIKA-19136475124919546579-Forecasting-economic-growth-in.htm