Nowcasting German GDP: Foreign factors, financial markets, and model averaging
Journal
International Journal of Forecasting
Subject
Economics
Publishing details
Authors / Editors
Andreini P;Hasenzagl T;Reichlin L;Senftleben-Konig C;Strohsal T
Biographies
Publication Year
2023
Abstract
This paper develops a nowcasting model for the German economy. The model outperforms a number of alternatives and produces forecasts not only for GDP but also for other key variables. We show that the inclusion of a foreign factor improves the model’s performance, while financial variables do not. Additionally, a comprehensive model averaging exercise reveals that factor extraction in a single model delivers slightly better results than averaging across models. Finally, we estimate a “news” index for the German economy in order to assess the overall performance of the model beyond forecast errors in GDP. The index is constructed as a weighted average of the nowcast errors related to each variable included in the model.
Available on ECCH
No
