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Nowcasting euro area GDP with news sentiment: a tale of two crises

Author

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  • Saiz, Lorena
  • Ashwin, Julian
  • Kalamara, Eleni

Abstract

This paper shows that newspaper articles contain timely economic signals that can materially improve nowcasts of real GDP growth for the euro area. Our text data is drawn from fifteen popular European newspapers, that collectively represent the four largest Euro area economies, and are machine translated into English. Daily sentiment metrics are created from these news articles and we assess their value for nowcasting. By comparing to competitive and rigorous benchmarks, we find that newspaper text is helpful in nowcasting GDP growth especially in the first half of the quarter when other lower-frequency soft indicators are not available. The choice of the sentiment measure matters when tracking economic shocks such as the Great Recession and the Great Lockdown. Non-linear machine learning models can help capture extreme movements in growth, but require sufficient training data in order to be effective so become more useful later in our sample. JEL Classification: C43, C45, C55, C82, E37

Suggested Citation

  • Saiz, Lorena & Ashwin, Julian & Kalamara, Eleni, 2021. "Nowcasting euro area GDP with news sentiment: a tale of two crises," Working Paper Series 2616, European Central Bank.
  • Handle: RePEc:ecb:ecbwps:20212616
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    Cited by:

    1. Aprigliano, Valentina & Emiliozzi, Simone & Guaitoli, Gabriele & Luciani, Andrea & Marcucci, Juri & Monteforte, Libero, 2023. "The power of text-based indicators in forecasting Italian economic activity," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(2), pages 791-808.
    2. Barbaglia, Luca & Frattarolo, Lorenzo & Onorante, Luca & Pericoli, Filippo Maria & Ratto, Marco & Tiozzo Pezzoli, Luca, 2023. "Testing big data in a big crisis: Nowcasting under Covid-19," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1548-1563.
    3. Müller, Henrik & Schmidt, Tobias & Rieger, Jonas & Hufnagel, Lena Marie & Hornig, Nico, 2022. "A German inflation narrative. How the media frame price dynamics: Results from a RollingLDA analysis," DoCMA Working Papers 9, TU Dortmund University, Dortmund Center for Data-based Media Analysis (DoCMA).
    4. Shrub, Yuliya & Rieger, Jonas & Müller, Henrik & Jentsch, Carsten, 2022. "Text data rule - don't they? A study on the (additional) information of Handelsblatt data for nowcasting German GDP in comparison to established economic indicators," Ruhr Economic Papers 964, RWI - Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung, Ruhr-University Bochum, TU Dortmund University, University of Duisburg-Essen.
    5. Ashwin,Julian & Rao,Vijayendra & Biradavolu,Monica Rao & Chhabra,Aditya & Haque,Arshia & Khan,Afsana Iffat & Krishnan,Nandini, 2022. "A Method to Scale-Up Interpretative Qualitative Analysis, with an Application toAspirations in Cox’s Bazaar, Bangladesh," Policy Research Working Paper Series 10046, The World Bank.
    6. Kakuho Furukawa & Ryohei Hisano, 2022. "A Nowcasting Model of Exports Using Maritime Big Data," Bank of Japan Working Paper Series 22-E-19, Bank of Japan.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    business cycles; COVID-19; forecasting; machine learning; text analysis;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • C45 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Neural Networks and Related Topics
    • C55 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Large Data Sets: Modeling and Analysis
    • C82 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - Methodology for Collecting, Estimating, and Organizing Macroeconomic Data; Data Access
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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