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Nowcasting Business Cycles: a Bayesian Approach to Dynamic Heterogeneous Factor Models

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We develop a framework for measuring and monitoring business cycles in real time. Following a long tradition in macroeconometrics, inference is based on a variety of indicators of economic activity, treated as imperfect measures of an underlying index of business cycle conditions. We extend existing approaches by permitting for heterogenous lead-lag patterns of the various indicators along the business cycles. The framework is well suited for high-frequency monitoring of current economic conditions in real time - nowcasting - since inference can be conducted in presence of mixed frequency data and irregular patterns of data availability. Our assessment of the underlying index of business cycle conditions is accurate and more timely than popular alternatives, including the Chicago Fed National Activity Index (CFNAI). A formal real-time forecasting evaluation shows that the framework produces well-calibrated probability nowcasts that resemble the consensus assessment of t he Survey of Professional Forecasters.

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  • Antonello D'Agostino & Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Michele Modugno, 2015. "Nowcasting Business Cycles: a Bayesian Approach to Dynamic Heterogeneous Factor Models," Finance and Economics Discussion Series 2015-66, Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve System (U.S.).
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedgfe:2015-66
    DOI: 10.17016/FEDS.2015.066
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    Cited by:

    1. Monokroussos, George & Zhao, Yongchen, 2020. "Nowcasting in real time using popularity priors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 1173-1180.
    2. Juan Antolin-Diaz & Thomas Drechsel & Ivan Petrella, 2017. "Tracking the Slowdown in Long-Run GDP Growth," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 99(2), pages 343-356, May.
    3. Matteo Luciani & Madhavi Pundit & Arief Ramayandi & Giovanni Veronese, 2018. "Nowcasting Indonesia," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 597-619, September.
    4. Jacopo Cimadomo & Antonello D'Agostino, 2016. "Combining Time Variation and Mixed Frequencies: an Analysis of Government Spending Multipliers in Italy," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 31(7), pages 1276-1290, November.
    5. Cimadomo, Jacopo & Giannone, Domenico & Lenza, Michele & Monti, Francesca & Sokol, Andrej, 2022. "Nowcasting with large Bayesian vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 231(2), pages 500-519.
    6. Cascaldi-Garcia, Danilo & Ferreira, Thiago R.T. & Giannone, Domenico & Modugno, Michele, 2024. "Back to the present: Learning about the euro area through a now-casting model," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(2), pages 661-686.
    7. Scott A. Brave & R. Andrew Butters & David Kelley, 2019. "A New “Big Data” Index of U.S. Economic Activity," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, issue 1, pages 1-30.
    8. Brandyn Bok & Daniele Caratelli & Domenico Giannone & Argia M. Sbordone & Andrea Tambalotti, 2018. "Macroeconomic Nowcasting and Forecasting with Big Data," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 10(1), pages 615-643, August.
    9. Beetsma, Roel & Cimadomo, Jacopo & van Spronsen, Josha, 2022. "One scheme fits all: a central fiscal capacity for the EMU targeting eurozone, national and regional shocks," Working Paper Series 2666, European Central Bank.
    10. Marek Jarociński & Michele Lenza, 2018. "An Inflation‐Predicting Measure of the Output Gap in the Euro Area," Journal of Money, Credit and Banking, Blackwell Publishing, vol. 50(6), pages 1189-1224, September.
    11. Robert Lehmann & Magnus Reif & Timo Wollmershäuser, 2020. "ifoCAST: The New Forecast Standard of the ifo Institute," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 73(11), pages 31-39, November.
    12. Petrella, Ivan & Santoro, Emiliano & Simonsen, Lasse de la Porte, 2018. "Time-varying Price Flexibility and Inflation Dynamics," CEPR Discussion Papers 13027, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    13. Nataliia Ostapenko, 2022. "Do output gap estimates improve inflation forecasts in Slovakia?," Working and Discussion Papers WP 4/2022, Research Department, National Bank of Slovakia.
    14. Daniel Wochner, 2020. "Dynamic Factor Trees and Forests – A Theory-led Machine Learning Framework for Non-Linear and State-Dependent Short-Term U.S. GDP Growth Predictions," KOF Working papers 20-472, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Current Economic Conditions; Dynamic Factor Models; Dynamic Heterogeneity; Business Cycles; Real Time; nowcasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C11 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods and Methodology: General - - - Bayesian Analysis: General
    • C32 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes; State Space Models
    • C38 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Classification Methdos; Cluster Analysis; Principal Components; Factor Analysis
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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