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Experts, firms, consumers or even hard data? Forecasting employment in Germany

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  • Lehmann, Robert
  • Wohlrabe, Klaus

Abstract

In this paper, we forecast employment growth for Germany with data for the period from November 2008 to November 2015. Hutter and Weber (2015) introduced an innovative unemployment indicator and evaluate the performance of several leading indicators, including the Ifo Employment Barometer, to predict unemployment changes. Since the Ifo Employment Barometer focuses on employment growth instead of unemployment developments, we mirror the study by Hutter and Weber (2015). It turns out that in our case, and in contrast to their article, the Ifo Employment Barometer outperforms their newly developed indicator. Additionally, consumers’ unemployment expectations and hard data such as new orders exhibit a high forecasting accuracy.

Suggested Citation

  • Lehmann, Robert & Wohlrabe, Klaus, 2016. "Experts, firms, consumers or even hard data? Forecasting employment in Germany," MPRA Paper 69611, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:69611
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Robert Lehmann & Antje Weyh, 2016. "Forecasting Employment in Europe: Are Survey Results Helpful?," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 12(1), pages 81-117, September.
    2. Peter R. Hansen & Asger Lunde & James M. Nason, 2011. "The Model Confidence Set," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 79(2), pages 453-497, March.
    3. Steffen Henzel & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2014. "The Ifo Employment Barometer and the German Labour Market," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 67(15), pages 35-40, August.
    4. Claveria, Oscar & Pons, Ernest & Ramos, Raul, 2007. "Business and consumer expectations and macroeconomic forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(1), pages 47-69.
    5. Abberger, Klaus, 2007. "Qualitative business surveys and the assessment of employment -- A case study for Germany," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 249-258.
    6. Martinsen, Kjetil & Ravazzolo, Francesco & Wulfsberg, Fredrik, 2014. "Forecasting macroeconomic variables using disaggregate survey data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(1), pages 65-77.
    7. Weber, Enzo & Zika, Gerd, 2013. "Labour market forecasting : is disaggregation useful?," IAB-Discussion Paper 201314, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany].
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

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    Cited by:

    1. Claveria, Oscar, 2019. "Forecasting the unemployment rate using the degree of agreement in consumer unemployment expectations," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 53(1), pages 1-3.
    2. Robert Lehmann, 2023. "The Forecasting Power of the ifo Business Survey," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 19(1), pages 43-94, March.
    3. Oscar Claveria & Enric Monte & Salvador Torra, 2019. "Empirical modelling of survey-based expectations for the design of economic indicators in five European regions," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 46(2), pages 205-227, May.
    4. Hutter, Christian, 2020. "A new indicator for nowcasting employment subject to social security contributions in Germany," Journal for Labour Market Research, Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), Nürnberg [Institute for Employment Research, Nuremberg, Germany], vol. 54(1), pages 1-4.
    5. Sorić, Petar & Lolić, Ivana & Claveria, Oscar & Monte, Enric & Torra, Salvador, 2019. "Unemployment expectations: A socio-demographic analysis of the effect of news," Labour Economics, Elsevier, vol. 60(C), pages 64-74.
    6. Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "Das neue ifo Beschäftigungsbarometer," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 71(09), pages 34-36, May.
    7. Oscar Claveria & Enric Monte & Salvador Torra, 2018. "“Tracking economic growth by evolving expectations via genetic programming: A two-step approach”," AQR Working Papers 201801, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Jan 2018.
    8. Oscar Claveria, 2019. "Forecasting the unemployment rate using the degree of agreement in consumer unemployment expectations," Journal for Labour Market Research, Springer;Institute for Employment Research/ Institut für Arbeitsmarkt- und Berufsforschung (IAB), vol. 53(1), pages 1-10, December.
    9. Oscar Claveria & Enric Monte & Salvador Torra, 2019. "Evolutionary Computation for Macroeconomic Forecasting," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 53(2), pages 833-849, February.
    10. repec:iab:iabjlr:v:53:i:1:p:art.3 is not listed on IDEAS

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    survey data; employment forecasts; model confidence set;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E24 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Employment; Unemployment; Wages; Intergenerational Income Distribution; Aggregate Human Capital; Aggregate Labor Productivity
    • E27 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Consumption, Saving, Production, Employment, and Investment - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • J00 - Labor and Demographic Economics - - General - - - General

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