IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/
MyIDEAS: Log in (now much improved!) to save this article

Nowcasting US GDP: The role of ISM business surveys

Author Info

Listed author(s):
  • Lahiri, Kajal
  • Monokroussos, George

Abstract

We study the role of the well-known monthly diffusion indices produced by the Institute for Supply Management (ISM) in nowcasting current quarter US GDP growth. In contrast to the existing literature on ISM surveys, we investigate their marginal impact on these nowcasts when large unbalanced (jagged edge) macroeconomic data sets are used to generate them in real time. We find evidence that these ISM indices are helpful in improving the nowcasts when new ISM information becomes available at the beginning of the month, ahead of other monthly indicators. Furthermore, while the existing literature has focused almost exclusively on manufacturing information, here we establish the increasingly significant role of the recently created non-manufacturing ISM diffusion indices in such nowcasting contexts.

Download Info

If you experience problems downloading a file, check if you have the proper application to view it first. In case of further problems read the IDEAS help page. Note that these files are not on the IDEAS site. Please be patient as the files may be large.

File URL: http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0169207012000374
Download Restriction: Full text for ScienceDirect subscribers only

As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version under "Related research" (further below) or search for a different version of it.

Article provided by Elsevier in its journal International Journal of Forecasting.

Volume (Year): 29 (2013)
Issue (Month): 4 ()
Pages: 644-658

as
in new window

Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:29:y:2013:i:4:p:644-658
DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2012.02.010
Contact details of provider: Web page: http://www.elsevier.com/locate/ijforecast

Keywords: Forecasting; ISM; PMI; NMI; Factor models; Kalman filter; Real time data;

Other versions of this item:

References listed on IDEAS
Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.:

as
in new window


  1. 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.
  2. Dasgupta, Susmita & Lahiri, Kajal, 1992. "A Comparative Study of Alternative Methods of Quantifying Qualitative Survey Responses Using NAPM Data," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 10(4), pages 391-400, October.
  3. Claudia FORONI & Massimiliano MARCELLINO, 2012. "A Comparison of Mixed Frequency Approaches for Modelling Euro Area Macroeconomic Variables," Economics Working Papers ECO2012/07, European University Institute.
  4. 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.
  5. 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.
  6. 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.
  7. Cecilia Frale & Massimiliano Marcellino & Gian Luigi Mazzi & Tommaso Proietti, 2011. "EUROMIND: a monthly indicator of the euro area economic conditions," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 174(2), pages 439-470, 04.
  8. G. Rünstler & K. Barhoumi & S. Benk & R. Cristadoro & A. Den Reijer & A. Jakaitiene & P. Jelonek & A. Rua & K. Ruth & C. Van Nieuwenhuyze, 2009. "Short-term forecasting of GDP using large datasets: a pseudo real-time forecast evaluation exercise," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(7), pages 595-611.
  9. Cecilia Frale & Massimiliano Marcellino & Gian Luigi Mazzi & Tommaso Proietti, 2010. "Survey data as coincident or leading indicators," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 29(1-2), pages 109-131.
  10. 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.
  11. Andrea Carriero & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2011. "Sectoral Survey‐based Confidence Indicators for Europe," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 73(2), pages 175-206, 04.
  12. Kuzin, Vladimir & Marcellino, Massimiliano & Schumacher, Christian, 2011. "MIDAS vs. mixed-frequency VAR: Nowcasting GDP in the euro area," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 529-542.
  13. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
  14. Banerjee, Anindya & Marcellino, Massimiliano, 2006. "Are there any reliable leading indicators for US inflation and GDP growth?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 22(1), pages 137-151.
  15. Ghysels, Eric & Santa-Clara, Pedro & Valkanov, Rossen, 2004. "The MIDAS Touch: Mixed Data Sampling Regression Models," University of California at Los Angeles, Anderson Graduate School of Management qt9mf223rs, Anderson Graduate School of Management, UCLA.
  16. Andreou, Elena & Ghysels, Eric & Kourtellos, Andros, 2010. "Regression models with mixed sampling frequencies," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 158(2), pages 246-261, October.
  17. K. Barhoumi & S. Benk & R. Cristadoro & A. Den Reijer & A. Jakaitiene & P. Jelonek & A. Rua & K. Ruth & C. Van Nieuwenhuyze & G. Rünstler, 2008. "Short-term forecasting of GDP using large monthly datasets – A pseudo real-time forecast evaluation exercise," Working Paper Research 133, National Bank of Belgium.
  18. Margaret M. McConnell & Gabriel Perez-Quiros, 2000. "Output fluctuations in the United States: what has changed since the early 1980s?," Proceedings, Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, issue Mar.
  19. Harvey, David & Leybourne, Stephen & Newbold, Paul, 1997. "Testing the equality of prediction mean squared errors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 281-291, June.
  20. Athanasios Orphanides, 2002. "Monetary-Policy Rules and the Great Inflation," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 92(2), pages 115-120, May.
  21. Evan F. Koenig, 2002. "Using the Purchasing Managers' Index to assess the economy's strength and the likely direction of monetary policy," Economic and Financial Policy Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas.
  22. K. Barhoumi & S. Benk & R. Cristadoro & A. Den Reijer & A. Jakaitiene & P. Jelonek & A. Rua & K. Ruth & C. Van Nieuwenhuyze & G. Rünstler, 2008. "Short-term forecasting of GDP using large monthly datasets – A pseudo real-time forecast evaluation exercise," Working Paper Research 133, National Bank of Belgium.
  23. Giannone, Domenico & Reichlin, Lucrezia & Small, David, 2005. "Nowcasting GDP and Inflation: The Real Time Informational Content of Macroeconomic Data Releases," CEPR Discussion Papers 5178, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

Citations

RePEc Biblio mentions

As found on the RePEc Biblio, the curated bibliography for Economics:
  1. > Econometrics > Forecasting > Nowcasting
Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
as
in new window


Cited by:
This item has more than 25 citations. To prevent cluttering this page, these citations are listed on a separate page.

This item is not listed on Wikipedia, on a reading list or among the top items on IDEAS.

Access and download statistics

When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:29:y:2013:i:4:p:644-658. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: (Dana Niculescu)

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 references are entirely missing, you can add them using this form.

If the full references list an item that is present in RePEc, but the system did not link 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 profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

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

This information is provided to you by IDEAS at the Research Division of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis using RePEc data.