IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/spr/empeco/v46y2014i1p145-174.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Economic forecast quality: information timeliness and data vintage effects

Author

Listed:
  • Nicholas Taylor

Abstract

This paper investigates the impact of the timeliness of information releases and data vintage variation on economic forecast quality. Specifically, using a set of 63 key US economic series, we provide a concise measure of the forecast accuracy associated with use of economic activity indices with different publication lags. A forecasting model based on an economic activity index that is subject to a short publication lag (viz. the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti index) is more efficient than competing models. Moreover, if this publication lag advantage is removed (by artificially imposing a publication lag restriction comparable to that of a competing indicator) this efficiency largely disappears. The final part of the analysis employs a novel (simulation-based) method of assessing the impact of data vintage variation on forecast accuracy, and finds that the results are somewhat sensitive to such variation. Copyright Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2014

Suggested Citation

  • Nicholas Taylor, 2014. "Economic forecast quality: information timeliness and data vintage effects," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 46(1), pages 145-174, February.
    • Handle: RePEc:spr:empeco:v:46:y:2014:i:1:p:145-174
    DOI: 10.1007/s00181-012-0672-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1007/s00181-012-0672-3
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1007/s00181-012-0672-3?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. S. Boragan Aruoba & Francis X. Diebold, 2010. "Real-Time Macroeconomic Monitoring: Real Activity, Inflation, and Interactions," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 100(2), pages 20-24, May.
    2. Corradi, Valentina & Fernandez, Andres & Swanson, Norman R., 2009. "Information in the Revision Process of Real-Time Datasets," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 455-467.
    3. Evan F. Koenig & Sheila Dolmas & Jeremy Piger, 2003. "The Use and Abuse of Real-Time Data in Economic Forecasting," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 618-628, August.
    4. Sydney C. Ludvigson, 2004. "Consumer Confidence and Consumer Spending," Journal of Economic Perspectives, American Economic Association, vol. 18(2), pages 29-50, Spring.
    5. 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.
    6. David Lang & Kevin J. Lansing, 2010. "Forecasting growth over the next year with a business cycle index," FRBSF Economic Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue sep27.
    7. Dean Croushore & Tom Stark, 2003. "A Real-Time Data Set for Macroeconomists: Does the Data Vintage Matter?," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 85(3), pages 605-617, August.
    8. 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.
    9. Marcellino, Massimiliano & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2006. "A comparison of direct and iterated multistep AR methods for forecasting macroeconomic time series," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 135(1-2), pages 499-526.
    10. Fildes, Robert & Stekler, Herman, 2002. "The state of macroeconomic forecasting," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 435-468, December.
    11. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 1999. "Forecasting inflation," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 44(2), pages 293-335, October.
    12. Fildes, Robert & Stekler, Herman, 2002. "Reply to the comments on 'The state of macroeconomic forecasting'," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 503-505, December.
    13. Don Harding & Adrian Pagan, 2010. "Can We Predict Recessions?," NCER Working Paper Series 69, National Centre for Econometric Research.
    14. Rudebusch, Glenn D. & Williams, John C., 2009. "Forecasting Recessions: The Puzzle of the Enduring Power of the Yield Curve," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 492-503.
    15. Aruoba, S. BoraÄŸan & Diebold, Francis X. & Scotti, Chiara, 2009. "Real-Time Measurement of Business Conditions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 417-427.
    16. Scott Brave, 2009. "The Chicago Fed National Activity Index and business cycles," Chicago Fed Letter, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Nov.
    17. Faust, Jon & Rogers, John H & Wright, Jonathan H, 2005. "News and Noise in G-7 GDP Announcements," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 37(3), pages 403-419, June.
    18. 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.).
    19. R. Mark Rogers, 1992. "Forecasting industrial production: purchasing managers' versus production-worker hours data," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Atlanta, issue Jan, pages 25-36.
    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. Oestmann Marco & Bennöhr Lars, 2015. "Determinants of house price dynamics. What can we learn from search engine data?," Review of Economics, De Gruyter, vol. 66(1), pages 99-127, April.
    2. Yang, Ann Shawing, 2020. "Misinformation corrections of corporate news: Corporate clarification announcements," Pacific-Basin Finance Journal, Elsevier, vol. 61(C).

    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. 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.
    2. Aastveit, Knut Are & Trovik, Tørres, 2014. "Estimating the output gap in real time: A factor model approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 180-193.
    3. Glocker, Christian & Kaniovski, Serguei, 2020. "Structural modeling and forecasting using a cluster of dynamic factor models," MPRA Paper 101874, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    4. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 2016. "Dynamic Factor Models, Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressions, and Structural Vector Autoregressions in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 415-525, Elsevier.
    5. 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.
    6. Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael W. & Luisi, Maurizio, 2015. "Distilling the macroeconomic news flow," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 117(3), pages 489-507.
    7. Serena Ng & Jonathan H. Wright, 2013. "Facts and Challenges from the Great Recession for Forecasting and Macroeconomic Modeling," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 51(4), pages 1120-1154, December.
    8. Foroni, Claudia & Ravazzolo, Francesco & Rossini, Luca, 2023. "Are low frequency macroeconomic variables important for high frequency electricity prices?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 120(C).
    9. 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.
    10. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2013. "Forecasting in macroeconomics," Chapters, in: Nigar Hashimzade & Michael A. Thornton (ed.), Handbook of Research Methods and Applications in Empirical Macroeconomics, chapter 17, pages 381-408, Edward Elgar Publishing.
    11. Michael P. Clements & Ana Beatriz Galvao, 2009. "Forecasting US output growth using leading indicators: an appraisal using MIDAS models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 24(7), pages 1187-1206.
    12. Garratt, Anthony & Koop, Gary & Mise, Emi & Vahey, Shaun P., 2009. "Real-Time Prediction With U.K. Monetary Aggregates in the Presence of Model Uncertainty," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 480-491.
    13. Chauvet, Marcelle & Potter, Simon, 2013. "Forecasting Output," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 141-194, Elsevier.
    14. Barnett, William A. & Chauvet, Marcelle & Leiva-Leon, Danilo, 2016. "Real-time nowcasting of nominal GDP with structural breaks," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 191(2), pages 312-324.
    15. Schumacher Christian, 2011. "Forecasting with Factor Models Estimated on Large Datasets: A Review of the Recent Literature and Evidence for German GDP," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(1), pages 28-49, February.
    16. William Barnett & Marcelle Chauvetz & Danilo Leiva-Leonx, 2014. "Real-Time Nowcasting Nominal GDP Under Structural Break," WORKING PAPERS SERIES IN THEORETICAL AND APPLIED ECONOMICS 201313, University of Kansas, Department of Economics, revised Feb 2014.
    17. Mr. Maxym Kryshko, 2011. "Data-Rich DSGE and Dynamic Factor Models," IMF Working Papers 2011/216, International Monetary Fund.
    18. William A. Barnett & Marcelle Chauvet & Danilo Leiva-Leon, 2014. "Real-Time Nowcasting of Nominal GDP Under Structural Breaks," Staff Working Papers 14-39, Bank of Canada.
    19. Claudia Foroni & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2013. "A survey of econometric methods for mixed-frequency data," Economics Working Papers ECO2013/02, European University Institute.
    20. Aruoba, S. BoraÄŸan & Diebold, Francis X. & Scotti, Chiara, 2009. "Real-Time Measurement of Business Conditions," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 27(4), pages 417-427.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Economic forecasting; Publication lags; Data vintage; C22; C53; E00;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E00 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - General

    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:spr:empeco:v:46:y:2014:i:1:p:145-174. 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: Sonal Shukla or Springer Nature Abstracting and Indexing (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.springer.com .

    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.