IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/diw/diwwpp/dp1414.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Filtering German Economic Conditions from a Large Dataset: The New DIW Economic Barometer

Author

Listed:
  • Paul Viefers
  • Ferdinand Fichtner
  • Simon Junker
  • Maximilian Podstawski

Abstract

This paper presents a revised version of the DIW Economic Barometer, the business cycle index of the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW Berlin). As in earlier versions, we put forward a factor model on a monthly frequency to filter the latent state of the aggregate economy. In the new version, the resulting business cycle factor is based on more than 300 variables. The main methodological changes relate to (i) the estimation procedure, (ii) treatment of publication lags and missings, and (iii) the decomposition of the index into contributions from different sectors of the economy. Alongside several practical advantages, we also document a better historical nowcasting performance of the new index.

Suggested Citation

  • Paul Viefers & Ferdinand Fichtner & Simon Junker & Maximilian Podstawski, 2014. "Filtering German Economic Conditions from a Large Dataset: The New DIW Economic Barometer," Discussion Papers of DIW Berlin 1414, DIW Berlin, German Institute for Economic Research.
    • Handle: RePEc:diw:diwwpp:dp1414
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.diw.de/documents/publikationen/73/diw_01.c.483449.de/dp1414.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Roberto S. Mariano & Yasutomo Murasawa, 2003. "A new coincident index of business cycles based on monthly and quarterly series," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 18(4), pages 427-443.
    2. Jushan Bai & Serena Ng, 2002. "Determining the Number of Factors in Approximate Factor Models," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 70(1), pages 191-221, January.
    3. Chamberlain, Gary & Rothschild, Michael, 1983. "Arbitrage, Factor Structure, and Mean-Variance Analysis on Large Asset Markets," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 51(5), pages 1281-1304, September.
    4. Schumacher, Christian & Breitung, Jörg, 2008. "Real-time forecasting of German GDP based on a large factor model with monthly and quarterly data," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 24(3), pages 386-398.
    5. Stock, James H. & Watson, Mark W., 2006. "Forecasting with Many Predictors," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 1, chapter 10, pages 515-554, Elsevier.
    6. James H. Stock & Mark W. Watson, 1989. "New Indexes of Coincident and Leading Economic Indicators," NBER Chapters, in: NBER Macroeconomics Annual 1989, Volume 4, pages 351-409, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    7. Roberto S. Mariano & Yasutomo Murasawa, 2010. "A Coincident Index, Common Factors, and Monthly Real GDP," Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics, Department of Economics, University of Oxford, vol. 72(1), pages 27-46, February.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Catherine Doz & Peter Fuleky, 2019. "Dynamic Factor Models," Working Papers halshs-02262202, HAL.
    2. Stock, J.H. & Watson, M.W., 2016. "Dynamic Factor Models, Factor-Augmented Vector Autoregressions, and Structural Vector Autoregressions in Macroeconomics," Handbook of Macroeconomics, in: J. B. Taylor & Harald Uhlig (ed.), Handbook of Macroeconomics, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 415-525, Elsevier.
    3. Claudia Foroni & Massimiliano Marcellino, 2013. "A survey of econometric methods for mixed-frequency data," Economics Working Papers ECO2013/02, European University Institute.
    4. Aastveit, Knut Are & Trovik, Tørres, 2014. "Estimating the output gap in real time: A factor model approach," The Quarterly Review of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 54(2), pages 180-193.
    5. Vladimir Kuzin & Massimiliano Marcellino & Christian Schumacher, 2009. "Pooling versus Model Selection for Nowcasting with Many Predictors: An Application to German GDP," Economics Working Papers ECO2009/13, European University Institute.
    6. Grassi, Stefano & Proietti, Tommaso & Frale, Cecilia & Marcellino, Massimiliano & Mazzi, Gianluigi, 2015. "EuroMInd-C: A disaggregate monthly indicator of economic activity for the Euro area and member countries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(3), pages 712-738.
    7. Elena Andreou & Eric Ghysels & Andros Kourtellos, 2013. "Should Macroeconomic Forecasters Use Daily Financial Data and How?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 240-251, April.
    8. Bräuning, Falk & Koopman, Siem Jan, 2014. "Forecasting macroeconomic variables using collapsed dynamic factor analysis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(3), pages 572-584.
    9. Tóth, Peter, 2014. "Malý dynamický faktorový model na krátkodobé prognózovanie slovenského HDP [A Small Dynamic Factor Model for the Short-Term Forecasting of Slovak GDP]," MPRA Paper 63713, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    10. Poncela, Pilar & Ruiz, Esther & Miranda, Karen, 2021. "Factor extraction using Kalman filter and smoothing: This is not just another survey," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 37(4), pages 1399-1425.
    11. Jin, Sainan & Miao, Ke & Su, Liangjun, 2021. "On factor models with random missing: EM estimation, inference, and cross validation," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 222(1), pages 745-777.
    12. Mayr, Johannes, 2010. "Forecasting Macroeconomic Aggregates," Munich Dissertations in Economics 11140, University of Munich, Department of Economics.
    13. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara, 2014. "Dynamic factor models: A review of the literature," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2013(2), pages 73-107.
    14. Franz Ramsauer & Aleksey Min & Michael Lingauer, 2019. "Estimation of FAVAR Models for Incomplete Data with a Kalman Filter for Factors with Observable Components," Econometrics, MDPI, vol. 7(3), pages 1-43, July.
    15. Monica Defend & Aleksey Min & Lorenzo Portelli & Franz Ramsauer & Francesco Sandrini & Rudi Zagst, 2021. "Quantifying Drivers of Forecasted Returns Using Approximate Dynamic Factor Models for Mixed-Frequency Panel Data," Forecasting, MDPI, vol. 3(1), pages 1-35, February.
    16. Schumacher Christian, 2011. "Forecasting with Factor Models Estimated on Large Datasets: A Review of the Recent Literature and Evidence for German GDP," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(1), pages 28-49, February.
    17. Kihwan Kim & Norman Swanson, 2013. "Diffusion Index Model Specification and Estimation Using Mixed Frequency Datasets," Departmental Working Papers 201315, Rutgers University, Department of Economics.
    18. Ruey Yau & C. James Hueng, 2019. "Nowcasting GDP Growth for Small Open Economies with a Mixed-Frequency Structural Model," Computational Economics, Springer;Society for Computational Economics, vol. 54(1), pages 177-198, June.
    19. David Havrlant & Peter Tóth & Julia Wörz, 2016. "On the optimal number of indicators – nowcasting GDP growth in CESEE," Focus on European Economic Integration, Oesterreichische Nationalbank (Austrian Central Bank), issue 4, pages 54-72.
    20. Catherine Doz & Domenico Giannone & Lucrezia Reichlin, 2012. "A Quasi–Maximum Likelihood Approach for Large, Approximate Dynamic Factor Models," The Review of Economics and Statistics, MIT Press, vol. 94(4), pages 1014-1024, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business Cycles; Nowcasting; Dynamic Factor Models; Principal Components;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • 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

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    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:diw:diwwpp:dp1414. 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: Bibliothek (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/diwbede.html .

    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.