IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/fip/fedlrv/00065.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

A Macroeconomic News Index for Constructing Nowcasts of U.S. Real Gross Domestic Product Growth

Author

Abstract

Analyzing the performance of the economy in real time is a challenge for those who must forecast macroeconomic variables such as inflation or employment. A key aspect of this challenge is evaluating the incoming flow of information contained in economic announcements. In this article, the authors develop a simple-to-read index of these announcements that they then use to construct nowcasts. The index tracks whether key economic data have come in stronger, weaker, or as expected during the current quarter relative to a baseline consensus forecast. Specifically, the data releases are weighted relative to their importance in updating forecasts of real gross domestic product growth during the current quarter.

Suggested Citation

  • Sean P. Grover & Kevin L. Kliesen & Michael W. McCracken, 2016. "A Macroeconomic News Index for Constructing Nowcasts of U.S. Real Gross Domestic Product Growth," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 98(4), pages 277-296.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedlrv:00065
    DOI: 10.20955/r.2016.277-296
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://files.stlouisfed.org/files/htdocs/publications/review/2016-12-05//a-macroeconomic-news-index-for-constructing-nowcasts-of-u-s-real-gross-domestic-product-growth.pdf
    File Function: Full text
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://dx.doi.org/10.20955/r.2016.277-296
    File Function: http://dx.doi.org/10.20955/r.2016.277-296
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.20955/r.2016.277-296?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
    ---><---

    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. Scott Brave & R. Andrew Butters, 2014. "Nowcasting Using the Chicago Fed National Activity Index," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue Q I, pages 19-37.
    3. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2006. "Forecasting with Many Predictors," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 515-554, Elsevier.
    4. Todd E. Clark & Michael W. McCracken, 2010. "Averaging forecasts from VARs with uncertain instabilities," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 5-29, January.
    5. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2006. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 1, number 1.
    6. Kozicki, Sharon & Tinsley, P. A., 2001. "Shifting endpoints in the term structure of interest rates," Journal of Monetary Economics, Elsevier, vol. 47(3), pages 613-652, June.
    7. Kevin L. Kliesen, 2014. "A guide to tracking the U.S. economy," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 96(1), pages 35-54.
    8. Jessica James & Kristjan Kasikov, 2008. "Impact of economic data surprises on exchange rates in the inter-dealer market," Quantitative Finance, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 8(1), pages 5-15.
    9. Kelly, Bryan & Pruitt, Seth, 2015. "The three-pass regression filter: A new approach to forecasting using many predictors," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 186(2), pages 294-316.
    10. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    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. Caruso, Alberto, 2019. "Macroeconomic news and market reaction: Surprise indexes meet nowcasting," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(4), pages 1725-1734.

    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. Knut Are Aastveit & Francesco Ravazzolo & Herman K. van Dijk, 2018. "Combined Density Nowcasting in an Uncertain Economic Environment," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 36(1), pages 131-145, January.
    2. Barbara Rossi, 2021. "Forecasting in the Presence of Instabilities: How We Know Whether Models Predict Well and How to Improve Them," Journal of Economic Literature, American Economic Association, vol. 59(4), pages 1135-1190, December.
    3. Graham Elliott & Allan Timmermann, 2016. "Forecasting in Economics and Finance," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 8(1), pages 81-110, October.
    4. Ard Reijer & Andreas Johansson, 2019. "Nowcasting Swedish GDP with a large and unbalanced data set," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 57(4), pages 1351-1373, October.
    5. Knut Are Aastveit & Karsten R. Gerdrup & Anne Sofie Jore & Leif Anders Thorsrud, 2014. "Nowcasting GDP in Real Time: A Density Combination Approach," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 32(1), pages 48-68, January.
    6. Vladimir Kuzin & Massimiliano Marcellino & Christian Schumacher, 2009. "Pooling versus Model Selection for Nowcasting with Many Predictors: An Application to German GDP," Economics Working Papers ECO2009/13, European University Institute.
    7. Knotek, Edward S. & Zaman, Saeed, 2023. "Real-time density nowcasts of US inflation: A model combination approach," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1736-1760.
    8. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    9. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2015. "Forecasting in Nonstationary Environments: What Works and What Doesn't in Reduced-Form and Structural Models," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 207-229, August.
    10. Bennedsen, Mikkel & Hillebrand, Eric & Koopman, Siem Jan, 2021. "Modeling, forecasting, and nowcasting U.S. CO2 emissions using many macroeconomic predictors," Energy Economics, Elsevier, vol. 96(C).
    11. Catherine Doz & Peter Fuleky, 2019. "Dynamic Factor Models," Working Papers 2019-4, University of Hawaii Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaii at Manoa.
    12. Karlsson, Sune, 2013. "Forecasting with Bayesian Vector Autoregression," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 791-897, Elsevier.
    13. Bańbura, Marta & Bobeica, Elena, 2023. "Does the Phillips curve help to forecast euro area inflation?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 364-390.
    14. Elliott, Graham & Gargano, Antonio & Timmermann, Allan, 2015. "Complete subset regressions with large-dimensional sets of predictors," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 54(C), pages 86-110.
    15. Marine Carrasco & Barbara Rossi, 2016. "In-Sample Inference and Forecasting in Misspecified Factor Models," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 34(3), pages 313-338, July.
    16. Schumacher, Christian, 2016. "A comparison of MIDAS and bridge equations," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 257-270.
    17. Bec, Frédérique & Mogliani, Matteo, 2015. "Nowcasting French GDP in real-time with surveys and “blocked” regressions: Combining forecasts or pooling information?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1021-1042.
    18. Wagner Piazza Gaglianone & João Victor Issler & Silvia Maria Matos, 2017. "Applying a microfounded-forecasting approach to predict Brazilian inflation," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 137-163, August.
    19. Clark, Todd E. & Doh, Taeyoung, 2014. "Evaluating alternative models of trend inflation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 426-448.
    20. Katja Drechsel & Laurent Maurin, 2011. "Flow of conjunctural information and forecast of euro area economic activity," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 30(3), pages 336-354, April.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes

    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:fip:fedlrv:00065. 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: Scott St. Louis (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbslus.html .

    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.