IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/eee/jjieco/v34y2014icp116-134.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Real-time GDP forecasting for Japan: A dynamic factor model approach

Author

Listed:
  • Urasawa, Satoshi

Abstract

Accurate and timely information on GDP is important to gauge the overall state of the economy and is thus essential for economic policymaking. A single-index dynamic factor model is estimated using mixed-frequency data on GDP, industrial production, employment, private consumption and exports to obtain early estimates of Japan’s quarterly GDP growth in real time. The results of a real-time forecasting exercise suggest the model performs well in comparison to the consensus forecasts, in terms both of its accuracy, measured by the size of forecast errors, to predict actual GDP estimates, and of its ability to signal turning points in GDP, showing the advantage of using the model for early assessment of ongoing economic activities in Japan. An equally important goal of this study is to share with other forecasters the results of ongoing real-time GDP forecasts for Japan, aiming at increasing knowledge regarding Japan’s GDP forecasting.

Suggested Citation

  • Urasawa, Satoshi, 2014. "Real-time GDP forecasting for Japan: A dynamic factor model approach," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 34(C), pages 116-134.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:jjieco:v:34:y:2014:i:c:p:116-134
    DOI: 10.1016/j.jjie.2014.05.005
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0889158314000422
    Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1016/j.jjie.2014.05.005?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to search for a different version of it.

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Giannone, Domenico & Reichlin, Lucrezia & Small, David, 2008. "Nowcasting: The real-time informational content of macroeconomic data," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 55(4), pages 665-676, May.
    2. Lahiri, Kajal & Monokroussos, George, 2013. "Nowcasting US GDP: The role of ISM business surveys," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(4), pages 644-658.
    3. Hara, Naoko & Ichiue, Hibiki, 2011. "Real-time analysis on Japan's labor productivity," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 25(2), pages 107-130, June.
    4. Martin D. D. Evans, 2005. "Where Are We Now? Real-Time Estimates of the Macroeconomy," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 1(2), September.
    5. Bańbura, Marta & Giannone, Domenico & Modugno, Michele & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2013. "Now-Casting and the Real-Time Data Flow," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 195-237, Elsevier.
    6. Bańbura, Marta & Rünstler, Gerhard, 2011. "A look into the factor model black box: Publication lags and the role of hard and soft data in forecasting GDP," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 333-346.
    7. Elena Angelini & Gonzalo Camba‐Mendez & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin & Gerhard Rünstler, 2011. "Short‐term forecasts of euro area GDP growth," Econometrics Journal, Royal Economic Society, vol. 14(1), pages 25-44, February.
    8. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark, 2011. "Dynamic Factor Models," Scholarly Articles 28469541, Harvard University Department of Economics.
    9. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin & David H. Small, 2005. "Nowcasting GDP and inflation: the real-time informational content of macroeconomic data releases," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2005-42, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Maximo Camacho & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2010. "Introducing the euro-sting: Short-term indicator of euro area growth," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(4), pages 663-694.
    11. Nigel Pain & Franck Sédillot, 2006. "Indicator models of real GDP growth in the major OECD economies," OECD Economic Studies, OECD Publishing, vol. 2005(1), pages 167-217.
    12. Roberto S. Mariano & Yasutomo Murasawa, 2003. "A new coincident index of business cycles based on monthly and quarterly series," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 427-443.
    13. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2010. "Are disaggregate data useful for factor analysis in forecasting French GDP?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1-2), pages 132-144.
    14. Massimiliano Marcellino & Christian Schumacher, 2010. "Factor MIDAS for Nowcasting and Forecasting with Ragged‐Edge Data: A Model Comparison for German GDP," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(4), pages 518-550, August.
    15. Boivin, Jean & Ng, Serena, 2006. "Are more data always better for factor analysis?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 169-194, May.
    16. Clements, Michael P. & Hendry, David F. (ed.), 2011. "The Oxford Handbook of Economic Forecasting," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780195398649.
    17. Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin & David Small, 2008. "Nowcasting: the real time informational content of macroeconomic data releases," ULB Institutional Repository 2013/6409, ULB -- Universite Libre de Bruxelles.
    18. Troy D. Matheson, 2014. "New indicators for tracking growth in real time," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2013(2), pages 51-71.
    19. Yasutomo Murasawa & Roberto S. Mariano, 2004. "Constructing a Coincident Index of Business Cycles Without Assuming a One-Factor Model," Econometric Society 2004 Far Eastern Meetings 710, Econometric Society.
    20. Shin-ichi Fukuda & Takashi Onodera, 2001. "A New Composite Index of Coincident Economic Indicators in Japan: How can we improve the forecast performance? ," CIRJE F-Series CIRJE-F-101, CIRJE, Faculty of Economics, University of Tokyo.
    21. Naoko Hara & Shotaro Yamane, 2013. "New Monthly Estimation Approach for Nowcasting GDP Growth: The Case of Japan," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 13-E-14, Bank of Japan.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Lamprou, Dimitra, 2016. "Nowcasting GDP in Greece: The impact of data revisions and forecast origin on model selection and performance," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 14(PA), pages 93-102.
    2. Kyosuke Chikamatsu, Naohisa Hirakata, Yosuke Kido, Kazuki Otaka, 2018. "Nowcasting Japanese GDPs," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 18-E-18, Bank of Japan.
    3. Fumio Hayashi & Yuta Tachi, 2023. "Nowcasting Japan’s GDP," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(4), pages 1699-1735, April.
    4. Aldona Migala-Warchol & Agata Surowka, 2022. "Forecasting Macroeconomic Indicators for Selected European Union Countries," European Research Studies Journal, European Research Studies Journal, vol. 0(2), pages 420-431.
    5. Chikamatsu, Kyosuke & Hirakata, Naohisa & Kido, Yosuke & Otaka, Kazuki, 2021. "Mixed-frequency approaches to nowcasting GDP: An application to Japan," Japan and the World Economy, Elsevier, vol. 57(C).
    6. Morita, Hiroshi, 2022. "Forecasting GDP growth using stock returns in Japan: A factor-augmented MIDAS approach," Discussion paper series HIAS-E-118, Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Study, Hitotsubashi University.
    7. Iiboshi, Hirokuni & Matsumae, Tatsuyoshi & Namba, Ryoichi & Nishiyama, Shin-Ichi, 2015. "Estimating a DSGE model for Japan in a data-rich environment," Journal of the Japanese and International Economies, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 25-55.
    8. Satoshi Urasawa, 2023. "The Usefulness of High-Frequency Alternative Data to Obtain Nowcasts for Japan’s GDP: Evidence from Credit Card Data," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 19(2), pages 191-211, September.
    9. Rudrani Bhattacharya & Bornali Bhandari & Sudipto Mundle, 2023. "Nowcasting India’s Quarterly GDP Growth: A Factor-Augmented Time-Varying Coefficient Regression Model (FA-TVCRM)," Journal of Quantitative Economics, Springer;The Indian Econometric Society (TIES), vol. 21(1), pages 213-234, March.
    10. Nana Geng & Yong Zhang & Yixiang Sun & Yunjian Jiang & Dandan Chen, 2015. "Forecasting China’s Annual Biofuel Production Using an Improved Grey Model," Energies, MDPI, vol. 8(10), pages 1-20, October.
    11. Koki Kyo & Hideo Noda & Genshiro Kitagawa, 2022. "Co-movement of Cyclical Components Approach to Construct a Coincident Index of Business Cycles," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 18(1), pages 101-127, March.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Bańbura, Marta & Giannone, Domenico & Modugno, Michele & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2013. "Now-Casting and the Real-Time Data Flow," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 195-237, Elsevier.
    2. Matteo Luciani & Lorenzo Ricci, 2014. "Nowcasting Norway," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 10(4), pages 215-248, December.
    3. Alain Galli & Christian Hepenstrick & Rolf Scheufele, 2019. "Mixed-Frequency Models for Tracking Short-Term Economic Developments in Switzerland," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 15(2), pages 151-178, June.
    4. Tóth, Peter, 2014. "Malý dynamický faktorový model na krátkodobé prognózovanie slovenského HDP [A Small Dynamic Factor Model for the Short-Term Forecasting of Slovak GDP]," MPRA Paper 63713, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    5. Alain Galli, 2018. "Which Indicators Matter? Analyzing the Swiss Business Cycle Using a Large-Scale Mixed-Frequency Dynamic Factor Model," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 14(2), pages 179-218, November.
    6. Claudia Foroni & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2013. "A survey of econometric methods for mixed-frequency data," Economics Working Papers ECO2013/02, European University Institute.
    7. 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.
    8. 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.
    9. Danilo Cascaldi-Garcia & Thiago Revil T. Ferreira & Domenico Giannone & Michele Modugno, 2021. "Back to the Present: Learning about the Euro Area through a Now-casting Model," International Finance Discussion Papers 1313, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    10. Chudik, Alexander & Grossman, Valerie & Pesaran, M. Hashem, 2016. "A multi-country approach to forecasting output growth using PMIs," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 192(2), pages 349-365.
    11. Alessandro Girardi & Roberto Golinelli & Carmine Pappalardo, 2017. "The role of indicator selection in nowcasting euro-area GDP in pseudo-real time," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 79-99, August.
    12. Rusnák, Marek, 2016. "Nowcasting Czech GDP in real time," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 26-39.
    13. Bragoli, Daniela, 2017. "Now-casting the Japanese economy," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 390-402.
    14. Matteo Luciani & Madhavi Pundit & Arief Ramayandi & Giovanni Veronese, 2018. "Nowcasting Indonesia," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 597-619, September.
    15. Chernis, Tony & Cheung, Calista & Velasco, Gabriella, 2020. "A three-frequency dynamic factor model for nowcasting Canadian provincial GDP growth," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 851-872.
    16. Cascaldi-Garcia, Danilo & Ferreira, Thiago R.T. & Giannone, Domenico & Modugno, Michele, 2024. "Back to the present: Learning about the euro area through a now-casting model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 661-686.
    17. Hindrayanto, Irma & Koopman, Siem Jan & de Winter, Jasper, 2016. "Forecasting and nowcasting economic growth in the euro area using factor models," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1284-1305.
    18. Bragoli, Daniela & Modugno, Michele, 2017. "A now-casting model for Canada: Do U.S. variables matter?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(4), pages 786-800.
    19. Modugno, Michele & Soybilgen, Barış & Yazgan, Ege, 2016. "Nowcasting Turkish GDP and news decomposition," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(4), pages 1369-1384.
    20. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2014. "Dynamic factor models: A review of the literature," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2013(2), pages 73-107.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business cycle indicator; Early GDP estimate; Forecast accuracy; Real-time data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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
    • E17 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General Aggregative Models - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:jjieco:v:34:y:2014:i:c:p:116-134. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Catherine Liu (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/inca/622903 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.