IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/wly/jforec/v40y2021i3p458-480.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Forecasting the production side of GDP

Author

Listed:
  • Gregor Bäurle
  • Elizabeth Steiner
  • Gabriel Züllig

Abstract

We evaluate the forecasting performance of time series models for the production side of gross domestic product (GDP)—that is, for the sectoral real value‐added series summing up to aggregate output. We focus on two strategies to model a large number of interdependent time series simultaneously: a Bayesian vector autoregressive model (BVAR) and a factor model structure; and compare them to simple aggregate and disaggregate benchmarks. We evaluate point and density forecasts for aggregate GDP and the cross‐sectional distribution of sectoral real value‐added growth in the euro area and Switzerland. We find that the factor model structure outperforms the benchmarks in most tests, and in many cases also the BVAR. An analysis of the covariance matrix of the sectoral forecast errors suggests that the superiority can be traced back to the ability to capture sectoral comovement more accurately.

Suggested Citation

  • Gregor Bäurle & Elizabeth Steiner & Gabriel Züllig, 2021. "Forecasting the production side of GDP," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(3), pages 458-480, April.
  • Handle: RePEc:wly:jforec:v:40:y:2021:i:3:p:458-480
    DOI: 10.1002/for.2725
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/for.2725
    Download Restriction: no

    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/for.2725?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Vasco M Carvalho & Makoto Nirei & Yukiko U Saito & Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, 2021. "Supply Chain Disruptions: Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 136(2), pages 1255-1321.
    2. Fuentes-Albero, Cristina & Melosi, Leonardo, 2013. "Methods for computing marginal data densities from the Gibbs output," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 175(2), pages 132-141.
    3. Rossi, Barbara, 2013. "Advances in Forecasting under Instability," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1203-1324, Elsevier.
    4. Yongsung Chang & Sunoong Hwang, 2015. "Asymmetric Phase Shifts in U.S. Industrial Production Cycles," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(1), pages 116-133, March.
    5. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2002. "Determining the Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, January.
    6. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 2016. "Core Inflation and Trend Inflation," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 98(4), pages 770-784, October.
    7. Vasco M Carvalho & Makoto Nirei & Yukiko U Saito & Alireza Tahbaz-Salehi, 0. "Supply Chain Disruptions: Evidence from the Great East Japan Earthquake," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, Oxford University Press, vol. 136(2), pages 1255-1321.
    8. Diks, Cees & Panchenko, Valentyn & van Dijk, Dick, 2010. "Out-of-sample comparison of copula specifications in multivariate density forecasts," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 34(9), pages 1596-1609, September.
    9. Geoff Kenny & Thomas Kostka & Federico Masera, 2014. "How Informative are the Subjective Density Forecasts of Macroeconomists?," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 33(3), pages 163-185, April.
    10. Joe Ganley & Chris Salmon, 1997. "The Industrial Impact of Monetary Policy Shocks: Some Stylised Facts," Bank of England working papers 68, Bank of England.
    11. Hendry, David F. & Hubrich, Kirstin, 2011. "Combining Disaggregate Forecasts or Combining Disaggregate Information to Forecast an Aggregate," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 29(2), pages 216-227.
    12. Tommaso Proietti & Martyna Marczak & Gianluigi Mazzi, 2017. "Euromind‐ D : A Density Estimate of Monthly Gross Domestic Product for the Euro Area," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 32(3), pages 683-703, April.
    13. Marcellino, Massimiliano & Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2003. "Macroeconomic forecasting in the Euro area: Country specific versus area-wide information," European Economic Review, Elsevier, vol. 47(1), pages 1-18, February.
    14. Ben S. Bernanke & Jean Boivin & Piotr Eliasz, 2005. "Measuring the Effects of Monetary Policy: A Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressive (FAVAR) Approach," The Quarterly Journal of Economics, President and Fellows of Harvard College, vol. 120(1), pages 387-422.
    15. Rossi, Barbara & Sekhposyan, Tatevik, 2013. "Conditional predictive density evaluation in the presence of instabilities," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 177(2), pages 199-212.
    16. repec:ulb:ulbeco:2013/13388 is not listed on IDEAS
    17. Domenico Giannone & Michele Lenza & Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2015. "Prior Selection for Vector Autoregressions," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 97(2), pages 436-451, May.
    18. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    19. Zellner, Arnold & Tobias, Justin, 1998. "A Note on Aggregation, Disaggregation and Forecasting Performance," CUDARE Working Papers 198677, University of California, Berkeley, Department of Agricultural and Resource Economics.
    20. Cecilia Frale & Massimiliano Marcellino & Gian Luigi Mazzi & Tommaso Proietti, 2011. "EUROMIND: a monthly indicator of the euro area economic conditions," Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A, Royal Statistical Society, vol. 174(2), pages 439-470, April.
    21. repec:bla:buecrs:v:64:y:2012:i::p:s53-s70 is not listed on IDEAS
    22. Christiane Baumeister & Luca Benati, 2013. "Unconventional Monetary Policy and the Great Recession: Estimating the Macroeconomic Effects of a Spread Compression at the Zero Lower Bound," International Journal of Central Banking, International Journal of Central Banking, vol. 9(2), pages 165-212, June.
    23. Pesaran M.H. & Schuermann T. & Weiner S.M., 2004. "Modeling Regional Interdependencies Using a Global Error-Correcting Macroeconometric Model," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 22, pages 129-162, April.
    24. Marc P. Giannoni & Jean Boivin, 2005. "DSGE Models in a Data-Rich Environment," Computing in Economics and Finance 2005 431, Society for Computational Economics.
    25. Hubrich, Kirstin, 2005. "Forecasting euro area inflation: Does aggregating forecasts by HICP component improve forecast accuracy?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 119-136.
    26. Tallman, Ellis W. & Zaman, Saeed, 2017. "Forecasting inflation: Phillips curve effects on services price measures," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 33(2), pages 442-457.
    27. Poirier, Dale J., 1998. "Revising Beliefs In Nonidentified Models," Econometric Theory, Cambridge University Press, vol. 14(4), pages 483-509, August.
    28. Newey, Whitney & West, Kenneth, 2014. "A simple, positive semi-definite, heteroscedasticity and autocorrelation consistent covariance matrix," Applied Econometrics, Russian Presidential Academy of National Economy and Public Administration (RANEPA), vol. 33(1), pages 125-132.
    29. Giorgio E. Primiceri, 2005. "Time Varying Structural Vector Autoregressions and Monetary Policy," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 72(3), pages 821-852.
    30. Gregor Bäurle & Elizabeth Steiner, 2015. "How do Individual Sectors Respond to Macroeconomic Shocks? A Structural Dynamic Factor Approach Applied to Swiss Data," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics (SJES), Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics (SSES), vol. 151(III), pages 167-225, September.
    31. Andrea Carriero & George Kapetanios & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2011. "Forecasting large datasets with Bayesian reduced rank multivariate models," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 26(5), pages 735-761, August.
    32. Lawrence J. Christiano & Terry J. Fitzgerald, 1998. "The business cycle: it's still a puzzle," Economic Perspectives, Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago, vol. 22(Q IV), pages 56-83.
    33. Jean Farès & Gabriel Srour, 2001. "The Monetary Transmission Mechanism at the Sectoral Level," Staff Working Papers 01-27, Bank of Canada.
    34. Giannone, Domenico & Reichlin, Lucrezia, 2009. "Comments on "Forecasting economic and financial variables with global VARs"," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 25(4), pages 684-686, October.
    35. Severin Bernhard, 2016. "A real-time GDP data set for Switzerland," Economic Studies 2016-09, Swiss National Bank.
    36. Jacob A. Mincer & Victor Zarnowitz, 1969. "The Evaluation of Economic Forecasts," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Forecasts and Expectations: Analysis of Forecasting Behavior and Performance, pages 3-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    37. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    38. John Geweke, 1978. "The Temporal and Sectoral Aggregation of Seasonally Adjusted Time Series," NBER Chapters, in: Seasonal Analysis of Economic Time Series, pages 411-432, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    39. Chib, Siddhartha, 1993. "Bayes regression with autoregressive errors : A Gibbs sampling approach," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 58(3), pages 275-294, August.
    40. Boero, Gianna & Smith, Jeremy & Wallis, Kenneth F., 2011. "Scoring rules and survey density forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 27(2), pages 379-393.
    41. Nicholas Bloom, 2009. "The Impact of Uncertainty Shocks," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 77(3), pages 623-685, May.
    42. Marta Banbura & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2010. "Large Bayesian vector auto regressions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 25(1), pages 71-92.
    43. Boivin, Jean & Ng, Serena, 2006. "Are more data always better for factor analysis?," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 132(1), pages 169-194, May.
    44. Diebold, Francis X & Mariano, Roberto S, 2002. "Comparing Predictive Accuracy," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(1), pages 134-144, January.
    45. 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.
    46. Diebold, Francis X & Gunther, Todd A & Tay, Anthony S, 1998. "Evaluating Density Forecasts with Applications to Financial Risk Management," International Economic Review, Department of Economics, University of Pennsylvania and Osaka University Institute of Social and Economic Research Association, vol. 39(4), pages 863-883, November.
    47. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara & Bertrand Pluyaud, 2012. "Monthly Gdp Forecasting Using Bridge Models: Application For The French Economy," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(Supplemen), pages 53-70, December.
    48. Gneiting, Tilmann & Raftery, Adrian E., 2007. "Strictly Proper Scoring Rules, Prediction, and Estimation," Journal of the American Statistical Association, American Statistical Association, vol. 102, pages 359-378, March.
    49. Stock, James H & Watson, Mark W, 2002. "Macroeconomic Forecasting Using Diffusion Indexes," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 20(2), pages 147-162, April.
    50. G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), 2013. "Handbook of Economic Forecasting," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, Elsevier, edition 1, volume 2, number 2.
    51. Hahn, Elke & Skudelny, Frauke, 2008. "Early estimates of euro area real GDP growth: a bottom up approach from the production side," Working Paper Series 975, European Central Bank.
    52. Jaeheung Bae & Taeyoung Doh, 2019. "Tracking U.S. GDP in Real Time," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, issue Q III, pages 5-19.
    53. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara & Bertrand Pluyaud, 2012. "Monthly GDP forecasting using bridge models: Comparison from the supply and demand sides for the French economy," Post-Print hal-01385807, HAL.
    54. Michael Horvath, 1998. "Cyclicality and Sectoral Linkages: Aggregate Fluctuations from Independent Sectoral Shocks," Review of Economic Dynamics, Elsevier for the Society for Economic Dynamics, vol. 1(4), pages 781-808, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Kleyton da Costa & Felipe Leite Coelho da Silva & Josiane da Silva Cordeiro Coelho & Andr'e de Melo Modenesi, 2020. "A Systematic Comparison of Forecasting for Gross Domestic Product in an Emergent Economy," Papers 2010.13259, arXiv.org, revised Mar 2022.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Berg, Tim O. & Henzel, Steffen R., 2015. "Point and density forecasts for the euro area using Bayesian VARs," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(4), pages 1067-1095.
    2. Barbara Rossi, 2019. "Forecasting in the presence of instabilities: How do we know whether models predict well and how to improve them," Economics Working Papers 1711, Department of Economics and Business, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, revised Jul 2021.
    3. Magnus Reif, 2020. "Macroeconomics, Nonlinearities, and the Business Cycle," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 87.
    4. Katja Heinisch & Rolf Scheufele, 2018. "Bottom-up or direct? Forecasting German GDP in a data-rich environment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 705-745, March.
    5. Cobb, Marcus P A, 2018. "Improving Underlying Scenarios for Aggregate Forecasts: A Multi-level Combination Approach," MPRA Paper 88593, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Nicoletta Pashourtidou & Christos Papamichael & Charalampos Karagiannakis, 2018. "Forecasting economic activity in sectors of the Cypriot economy," Cyprus Economic Policy Review, University of Cyprus, Economics Research Centre, vol. 12(2), pages 24-66, December.
    7. Marcus P. A. Cobb, 2020. "Aggregate density forecasting from disaggregate components using Bayesian VARs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 58(1), pages 287-312, January.
    8. Koop, Gary & Korobilis, Dimitris & Pettenuzzo, Davide, 2019. "Bayesian compressed vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 210(1), pages 135-154.
    9. Bekiros Stelios & Paccagnini Alessia, 2015. "Estimating point and density forecasts for the US economy with a factor-augmented vector autoregressive DSGE model," Studies in Nonlinear Dynamics & Econometrics, De Gruyter, vol. 19(2), pages 107-136, April.
    10. Inske Pirschel & Maik H. Wolters, 2018. "Forecasting with large datasets: compressing information before, during or after the estimation?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 55(2), pages 573-596, September.
    11. Korobilis, Dimitris & Pettenuzzo, Davide, 2019. "Adaptive hierarchical priors for high-dimensional vector autoregressions," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 212(1), pages 241-271.
    12. Cobb, Marcus P A, 2017. "Aggregate Density Forecasting from Disaggregate Components Using Large VARs," MPRA Paper 76849, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    13. Cobb, Marcus P A, 2017. "Forecasting Economic Aggregates Using Dynamic Component Grouping," MPRA Paper 81585, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    14. Andrejs Bessonovs, 2015. "Suite of Latvia's GDP forecasting models," Working Papers 2015/01, Latvijas Banka.
    15. Lombardi, Marco J. & Maier, Philipp, 2011. "Forecasting economic growth in the euro area during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession," Working Paper Series 1379, European Central Bank.
    16. Szafranek, Karol, 2019. "Bagged neural networks for forecasting Polish (low) inflation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1042-1059.
    17. Miranda-Agrippino, Silvia & Ricco, Giovanni, 2018. "Bayesian Vector Autoregressions," The Warwick Economics Research Paper Series (TWERPS) 1159, University of Warwick, Department of Economics.
    18. Raffaella Giacomini & Barbara Rossi, 2015. "Forecasting in Nonstationary Environments: What Works and What Doesn't in Reduced-Form and Structural Models," Annual Review of Economics, Annual Reviews, vol. 7(1), pages 207-229, August.
    19. Angela Capolongo & Claudia Pacella, 2021. "Forecasting inflation in the euro area: countries matter!," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 61(5), pages 2477-2499, November.
    20. Ganics, Gergely & Odendahl, Florens, 2021. "Bayesian VAR forecasts, survey information, and structural change in the euro area," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(2), pages 971-999.

    More about this item

    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
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:wly:jforec:v:40:y:2021:i:3:p:458-480. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/cgi-bin/jhome/2966 .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.