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Distilling the Macroeconomic News Flow

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  • Beber, Alessandro
  • Brandt, Michael
  • Luisi, Maurizio

Abstract

We propose a simple cross-sectional technique to extract daily latent factors from economic news releases available at different dates and frequencies. Our approach can effectively handle the large number of heterogeneous announcements that are relevant for tracking current economic conditions. We apply the technique to extract real-time measures of inflation, output, employment, and macroeconomic sentiment, as well as corresponding measures of disagreement among economists about these dimensions of the data. We find that our procedure provides more timely and accurate forecasts of the future evolution of the economy than other real-time forecasting approaches in the literature.

Suggested Citation

  • Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael & Luisi, Maurizio, 2013. "Distilling the Macroeconomic News Flow," CEPR Discussion Papers 9360, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
  • Handle: RePEc:cpr:ceprdp:9360
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    Cited by:

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    2. Jean-Charles Bricongne & Baptiste Meunier & Raquel Caldeira, 2024. "Should Central Banks Care About Text Mining? A Literature Review," Working papers 950, Banque de France.
    3. Garcí­a, Juan Angel & Werner, Sebastian E. V., 2016. "Bond risk premia, macroeconomic factors and financial crisis in the euro area," Working Paper Series 1938, European Central Bank.
    4. Guceri, Irem & Albinowski, Maciej, 2021. "Investment responses to tax policy under uncertainty," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 141(3), pages 1147-1170.
    5. Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael & Luisi, Maurizio, 2013. "Eurozone Sovereign Yield Spreads and Diverging Economic Fundamentals," CEPR Discussion Papers 9538, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    6. Zheng, Hannan & Schwenkler, Gustavo, 2020. "The network of firms implied by the news," ESRB Working Paper Series 108, European Systemic Risk Board.
    7. Dahlquist, Magnus & Hasseltoft, Henrik, 2020. "Economic momentum and currency returns," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 136(1), pages 152-167.
    8. van Binsbergen, Jules H. & Koijen, Ralph S.J., 2017. "The term structure of returns: Facts and theory," Journal of Financial Economics, Elsevier, vol. 124(1), pages 1-21.
    9. Alessi, Lucia & Balduzzi, Pierluigi & Savona, Roberto, 2019. "Anatomy of a Sovereign Debt Crisis: CDS Spreads and Real-Time Macroeconomic Data," Working Papers 2019-03, Joint Research Centre, European Commission.
    10. Audrino, Francesco & Tetereva, Anastasija, 2019. "Sentiment spillover effects for US and European companies," Journal of Banking & Finance, Elsevier, vol. 106(C), pages 542-567.
    11. Félix, Luiz & Kräussl, Roman & Stork, Philip, 2018. "Predictable biases in macroeconomic forecasts and their impact across asset classes," CFS Working Paper Series 596, Center for Financial Studies (CFS).
    12. Akhtar, Shumi & Akhtar, Farida & Jahromi, Maria & John, Kose, 2017. "Impact of interest rate surprises on Islamic and conventional stocks and bonds," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 79(C), pages 218-231.
    13. Luiz Félix & Roman Kräussl & Philip Stork, 2021. "Strategic bias and popularity effect in the prediction of economic surprises," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 40(6), pages 1095-1117, September.
    14. Beber, Alessandro & Brandt, Michael & Luisi, Maurizio, 2013. "Economic Cycles and Expected Stock Returns," CEPR Discussion Papers 9528, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Disagreement.; Macroeconomic news; Nowcasting;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • G12 - Financial Economics - - General Financial Markets - - - Asset Pricing; Trading Volume; Bond Interest Rates

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