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Nowcasting Swedish GDP with a large and unbalanced data set

den Reijer, Ard and Johansson, Andreas LU (2019) In Empirical Economics 57. p.1351-1373
Abstract
We evaluate pseudo-real-time out-of-sample nowcasts for Swedish GDP employing factor models and mixed-data sampling regressions with single predictor variables. These two model classes can handle the data irregularities of a ragged-edge sample and differing sampling frequencies. The results show that pooling of the nowcasts outperforms a simple benchmark, even though only very few of the underlying specifications achieve improved accuracy individually. Moreover, we assess the accuracy of the density forecasts, i.e., the uncertainty around the point forecasts. The post-crisis period after 2008 turns out to be a more difficult period to nowcast precisely. However, indicator variables prove more useful post-crisis as then the performance... (More)
We evaluate pseudo-real-time out-of-sample nowcasts for Swedish GDP employing factor models and mixed-data sampling regressions with single predictor variables. These two model classes can handle the data irregularities of a ragged-edge sample and differing sampling frequencies. The results show that pooling of the nowcasts outperforms a simple benchmark, even though only very few of the underlying specifications achieve improved accuracy individually. Moreover, we assess the accuracy of the density forecasts, i.e., the uncertainty around the point forecasts. The post-crisis period after 2008 turns out to be a more difficult period to nowcast precisely. However, indicator variables prove more useful post-crisis as then the performance relative to univariate benchmarks improves. (Less)
Abstract (Swedish)
We evaluate pseudo-real-time out-of-sample nowcasts for Swedish GDP employing factor models and mixed-data sampling regressions with single predictor variables. These two model classes can handle the data irregularities of a ragged-edge sample and differing sampling frequencies. The results show that pooling of the nowcasts outperforms a simple benchmark, even though only very few of the underlying specifications achieve improved accuracy individually. Moreover, we assess the accuracy of the density forecasts, i.e., the uncertainty around the point forecasts. The post-crisis period after 2008 turns out to be a more difficult period to nowcast precisely. However, indicator variables prove more useful post-crisis as then the performance... (More)
We evaluate pseudo-real-time out-of-sample nowcasts for Swedish GDP employing factor models and mixed-data sampling regressions with single predictor variables. These two model classes can handle the data irregularities of a ragged-edge sample and differing sampling frequencies. The results show that pooling of the nowcasts outperforms a simple benchmark, even though only very few of the underlying specifications achieve improved accuracy individually. Moreover, we assess the accuracy of the density forecasts, i.e., the uncertainty around the point forecasts. The post-crisis period after 2008 turns out to be a more difficult period to nowcast precisely. However, indicator variables prove more useful post-crisis as then the performance relative to univariate benchmarks improves. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
author
and
publishing date
type
Contribution to journal
publication status
published
subject
in
Empirical Economics
volume
57
pages
1351 - 1373
publisher
Physica Verlag
external identifiers
  • scopus:85050742232
ISSN
0377-7332
DOI
10.1007/s00181-018-1500-1
language
English
LU publication?
no
id
debc9741-a214-48a2-adf0-1f84d5d2d712
date added to LUP
2024-11-22 12:55:12
date last changed
2025-04-04 14:20:47
@article{debc9741-a214-48a2-adf0-1f84d5d2d712,
  abstract     = {{We evaluate pseudo-real-time out-of-sample nowcasts for Swedish GDP employing factor models and mixed-data sampling regressions with single predictor variables. These two model classes can handle the data irregularities of a ragged-edge sample and differing sampling frequencies. The results show that pooling of the nowcasts outperforms a simple benchmark, even though only very few of the underlying specifications achieve improved accuracy individually. Moreover, we assess the accuracy of the density forecasts, i.e., the uncertainty around the point forecasts. The post-crisis period after 2008 turns out to be a more difficult period to nowcast precisely. However, indicator variables prove more useful post-crisis as then the performance relative to univariate benchmarks improves.}},
  author       = {{den Reijer, Ard and Johansson, Andreas}},
  issn         = {{0377-7332}},
  language     = {{eng}},
  month        = {{07}},
  pages        = {{1351--1373}},
  publisher    = {{Physica Verlag}},
  series       = {{Empirical Economics}},
  title        = {{Nowcasting Swedish GDP with a large and unbalanced data set}},
  url          = {{http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00181-018-1500-1}},
  doi          = {{10.1007/s00181-018-1500-1}},
  volume       = {{57}},
  year         = {{2019}},
}