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EuroMInd-C: A disaggregate monthly indicator of economic activity for the Euro area and member countries

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  • Grassi, Stefano
  • Proietti, Tommaso
  • Frale, Cecilia
  • Marcellino, Massimiliano
  • Mazzi, Gianluigi

Abstract

This paper deals with the estimation of monthly indicators of economic activity for the Euro area and its largest member countries that possess the following attributes: relevance, representativeness and timeliness. Relevance is determined by comparing our monthly indicators to the gross domestic product at chained volumes, as the most important measure of the level of economic activity. Representativeness is achieved by considering a very large number of (timely) time series of monthly indicators relating to the level of economic activity, providing a more or less complete coverage. The indicators are modelled using a large-scale parametric factor model. We discuss its specification and provide details of the statistical treatment. Computational efficiency is crucial for the estimation of large-scale parametric factor models of the dimension used in our application (considering about 170 series). To achieve it, we apply state-of-the-art state space methods that can handle temporal aggregation, and any pattern of missing values.

Suggested Citation

  • Grassi, Stefano & Proietti, Tommaso & Frale, Cecilia & Marcellino, Massimiliano & Mazzi, Gianluigi, 2015. "EuroMInd-C: A disaggregate monthly indicator of economic activity for the Euro area and member countries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 712-738.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:31:y:2015:i:3:p:712-738
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2014.08.015
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    3. Poncela, Pilar & Ruiz, Esther & Miranda, Karen, 2021. "Factor extraction using Kalman filter and smoothing: This is not just another survey," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1399-1425.
    4. Laura Bisio & Filippo Moauro, 2018. "Temporal disaggregation by dynamic regressions: Recent developments in Italian quarterly national accounts," Statistica Neerlandica, Netherlands Society for Statistics and Operations Research, vol. 72(4), pages 471-494, November.
    5. Katja Heinisch & Rolf Scheufele, 2018. "Bottom-up or direct? Forecasting German GDP in a data-rich environment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 705-745, March.
    6. Luke Mosley & Tak-Shing Chan & Alex Gibberd, 2023. "sparseDFM: An R Package to Estimate Dynamic Factor Models with Sparse Loadings," Papers 2303.14125, arXiv.org.
    7. Joan Paredes & Javier J. Pérez & Gabriel Perez Quiros, 2023. "Fiscal targets. A guide to forecasters?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 472-492, June.
    8. Pinkwart, Nicolas, 2018. "Short-term forecasting economic activity in Germany: A supply and demand side system of bridge equations," Discussion Papers 36/2018, Deutsche Bundesbank.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Index of coincident indicators; Temporal disaggregation; Multivariate state space models; Dynamic factor models; Quarterly national accounts;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

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