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Forecasting Low Frequency Macroeconomic Events with High Frequency Data

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  • Ana B. Galvão
  • Michael T. Owyang

Abstract

High‐frequency financial and economic indicators are usually time‐aggregated before computing forecasts of macroeconomic events, such as recessions. We propose a mixed‐frequency alternative that delivers high‐frequency probability forecasts (including their confidence bands) for low‐frequency events. The new approach is compared with single‐frequency alternatives using loss functions for rare‐event forecasting. We find (i) the weekly‐sampled term spread improves over the monthly‐sampled to predict NBER recessions, (ii) the predictive content of financial variables is supplementary to economic activity for forecasts of vulnerability events, and (iii) a weekly activity index can date the 2020 business cycle peak in real‐time using a mixed‐frequency filtering.
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Suggested Citation

  • Ana B. Galvão & Michael T. Owyang, 2020. "Forecasting Low Frequency Macroeconomic Events with High Frequency Data," Working Papers 2020-028, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, revised Apr 2022.
  • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlwp:88704
    DOI: 10.20955/wp.2020.028
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    Cited by:

    1. Li, Dongxin & Zhang, Li & Li, Lihong, 2023. "Forecasting stock volatility with economic policy uncertainty: A smooth transition GARCH-MIDAS model," International Review of Financial Analysis, Elsevier, vol. 88(C).
    2. Serena Ng & Susannah Scanlan, 2023. "Constructing High Frequency Economic Indicators by Imputation," Papers 2303.01863, arXiv.org, revised Oct 2023.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    mixed frequency models; recession; financial indicators; weekly activity index; event probability forecasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C25 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Discrete Regression and Qualitative Choice Models; Discrete Regressors; Proportions; Probabilities
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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