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Real-Time Real Economic Activity: Exiting the Great Recession and Entering the Pandemic Recession

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  • Francis X. Diebold

Abstract

We study the real-time signals provided by the Aruoba-Diebold-Scotti Index of Business conditions (ADS) for tracking economic activity at high frequency. We start with exit from the Great Recession, comparing the evolution of real-time vintage beliefs to a "final" late-vintage chronology. We then consider entry into the Pandemic Recession, again tracking the evolution of real-time vintage beliefs. ADS swings widely as its underlying economic indicators swing widely, but the emerging ADS path as of this writing (late June) indicates a return to growth in May. The trajectory of the nascent recovery, however, is highly uncertain (particularly as COVID-19 spreads in the South and West) and could be revised or eliminated as new data arrive.

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  • Francis X. Diebold, 2020. "Real-Time Real Economic Activity: Exiting the Great Recession and Entering the Pandemic Recession," NBER Working Papers 27482, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    • Handle: RePEc:nbr:nberwo:27482
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    Cited by:

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    2. Flávio Menezes & Vivian Figer & Fernanda Jardim & Pedro Medeiros, 2021. "Using electricity consumption to predict economic activity during COVID-19 in Brazil," Discussion Papers Series 641, School of Economics, University of Queensland, Australia.
    3. Tesi Aliaj & Milos Ciganovic & Massimiliano Tancioni, 2023. "Nowcasting inflation with Lasso‐regularized vector autoregressions and mixed frequency data," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 464-480, April.
    4. Christiane Baumeister & Danilo Leiva-León & Eric Sims, 2024. "Tracking Weekly State-Level Economic Conditions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 106(2), pages 483-504, March.
    5. Menezes, Flavio & Figer, Vivian & Jardim, Fernanda & Medeiros, Pedro, 2022. "A near real-time economic activity tracker for the Brazilian economy during the COVID-19 pandemic," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    6. Frank Schorfheide & Dongho Song, 2020. "Real-Time Forecasting with a (Standard) Mixed-Frequency VAR During a Pandemic," Working Papers 20-26, Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia.
    7. Poncela, Pilar & Ruiz, Esther & Miranda, Karen, 2021. "Factor extraction using Kalman filter and smoothing: This is not just another survey," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1399-1425.
    8. Jad Beyhum & Jonas Striaukas, 2023. "Sparse plus dense MIDAS regressions and nowcasting during the COVID pandemic," Papers 2306.13362, arXiv.org, revised Dec 2023.
    9. Julien Chevallier, 2020. "COVID-19 Outbreak and CO 2 Emissions: Macro-Financial Linkages," JRFM, MDPI, vol. 14(1), pages 1-18, December.
    10. Marcellino, Massimiliano & Clark, Todd & Carriero, Andrea & Mertens, Elmar, 2021. "Addressing COVID-19 Outliers in BVARs with Stochastic Volatility," CEPR Discussion Papers 15964, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    11. Alejandra Bellatin & Gabriela Galassi, 2022. "What COVID-19 May Leave Behind: Technology-Related Job Postings in Canada," Staff Working Papers 22-17, Bank of Canada.
    12. Aktham Maghyereh & Hussein Abdoh, 2022. "Global financial crisis versus COVID‐19: Evidence from sentiment analysis," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 25(2), pages 218-248, August.
    13. Aaronson, Daniel & Brave, Scott A. & Butters, R. Andrew & Fogarty, Michael & Sacks, Daniel W. & Seo, Boyoung, 2022. "Forecasting unemployment insurance claims in realtime with Google Trends," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 567-581.
    14. Qiu, Yue & Zheng, Yuchen, 2023. "Improving box office projections through sentiment analysis: Insights from regularization-based forecast combinations," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 125(C).
    15. Foroni, Claudia & Marcellino, Massimiliano & Stevanovic, Dalibor, 2022. "Forecasting the Covid-19 recession and recovery: Lessons from the financial crisis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(2), pages 596-612.
    16. Bellatin, Alejandra & Galassi, Gabriela, 2022. "What COVID-19 May Leave Behind: Technology-Related Job Postings in Canada," IZA Discussion Papers 15209, Institute of Labor Economics (IZA).
    17. Daniel J. Lewis & Karel Mertens & James H. Stock & Mihir Trivedi, 2022. "Measuring real activity using a weekly economic index," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 37(4), pages 667-687, June.
    18. Stavros Degiannakis, 2023. "The D-model for GDP nowcasting," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 159(1), pages 1-33, December.

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    JEL classification:

    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles

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