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Weekly economic activity: Measurement and informational content

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  • Wegmüller, Philipp
  • Glocker, Christian
  • Guggia, Valentino

Abstract

We construct a composite index to measure the real activity of the Swiss economy on a weekly frequency. The index is based on a novel high-frequency data set capturing economic activity across distinct dimensions over a long time horizon. We propose a six-step procedure for extracting precise business cycle signals from the raw data. By means of a real-time evaluation, we highlight the importance of our proposed adjustment procedure: (i) our weekly index significantly outperforms a comparable index without adjusted input variables; and (ii) the weekly index outperforms established monthly indicators in nowcasting GDP growth. These insights should help improve other recently developed high-frequency indicators.

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  • Wegmüller, Philipp & Glocker, Christian & Guggia, Valentino, 2023. "Weekly economic activity: Measurement and informational content," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 228-243.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:39:y:2023:i:1:p:228-243
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2021.10.010
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    2. Martin Brown & Matthias R. Fengler & Jonas Huwyler & Winfried Koeniger & Rafael Lalive & Robert Rohrkemper, 2023. "Monitoring consumption Switzerland: data, background, and use cases," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 159(1), pages 1-16, December.
    3. Marc Burri, 2023. "Do daily lead texts help nowcasting GDP growth?," IRENE Working Papers 23-02, IRENE Institute of Economic Research.
    4. Alina Stundziene & Vaida Pilinkiene & Jurgita Bruneckiene & Andrius Grybauskas & Mantas Lukauskas, 2023. "Nowcasting Economic Activity Using Electricity Market Data: The Case of Lithuania," Economies, MDPI, vol. 11(5), pages 1-21, May.
    5. Laura Felber & Dr. Simon Beyeler, 2023. "Nowcasting economic activity using transaction payments data," Working Papers 2023-01, Swiss National Bank.
    6. Sylvia Kaufmann, 2022. "Covid-19 outbreak and beyond: A retrospect on the information content of registered short-time workers for GDP now- and forecasting," Working Papers 22.02, Swiss National Bank, Study Center Gerzensee.
    7. Daniel J. Lewis & Karel Mertens & James H. Stock & Mihir Trivedi, 2022. "Measuring real activity using a weekly economic index," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 667-687, June.
    8. Sylvia Kaufmann, 2023. "Covid-19 outbreak and beyond: a retrospect on the information content of short-time workers for GDP now- and forecasting," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 159(1), pages 1-10, December.
    9. Philipp Wegmüller & Christian Glocker, 2023. "US weekly economic index: Replication and extension," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(6), pages 977-985, September.

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