IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/fip/fedbwp/13-3.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Do real-time Okun's law errors predict GDP data revisions?

Author

Listed:
  • Michelle L. Barnes
  • Fabia Gumbau-Brisa
  • Giovanni P. Olivei

Abstract

Using U.S. real-time data, we show that changes in the unemployment rate unexplained by Okun's Law have significant predictive power for GDP data revisions. A positive (negative) error in Okun's Law in real time implies that GDP will be later revised to show less (more) growth than initially estimated by the statistical agency. The information in Okun's Law errors about the true state of real economic activity also helps to improve GDP forecasts in the near term. Our findings add a new dimension to the interpretation of real-time Okun's Law errors, as they show that these errors can convey information other than a change in potential GDP, the equilibrium unemployment rate, or the use of labor's intensive margin.

Suggested Citation

  • Michelle L. Barnes & Fabia Gumbau-Brisa & Giovanni P. Olivei, 2013. "Do real-time Okun's law errors predict GDP data revisions?," Working Papers 13-3, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston.
    • Handle: RePEc:fip:fedbwp:13-3
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2013/wp1303.htm
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: http://www.bostonfed.org/economic/wp/wp2013/wp1303.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Michael T. Owyang & Tatevik Sekhposyan, 2012. "Okun’s law over the business cycle: was the great recession all that different?," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, issue Sep, pages 399-418.
    2. Padula, Mario & Backé, Peter, 2003. "Inflation dynamics and subjective expectations in the United States," Working Paper Series 222, European Central Bank.
    3. Edward S. Knotek, 2007. "How useful is Okun's law?," Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, vol. 92(Q IV), pages 73-103.
    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. Ducoudré, Bruno & Hubert, Paul & Tabarly, Guilhem, 2020. "The state-dependence of output revisions," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 192(C).
    2. repec:spo:wpmain:info:hdl:2441/2q9catktmn91sabau2l9qji1as is not listed on IDEAS
    3. Rui M. Pereira, 2013. "Okun's Law across the Business Cycle and during the Great Recession: A Markov Switching Analysis," Working Papers 139, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    4. repec:hal:spmain:info:hdl:2441/2q9catktmn91sabau2l9qji1as is not listed on IDEAS
    5. Nektarios A. Michail, 2019. "Examining The Stability Of Okun'S Coefficient," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 71(3), pages 240-256, July.
    6. Ball, Laurence & Jalles, João Tovar & Loungani, Prakash, 2015. "Do forecasters believe in Okun’s Law? An assessment of unemployment and output forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 176-184.
    7. Stefanescu, Răzvan & Dumitriu, Ramona, 2015. "Creşterea economică a României între 1980 şi 2013 [The Economic Growth of Romania between 1980 and 2013]," MPRA Paper 61592, University Library of Munich, Germany.

    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. Costas KARFAKIS & Constantinos KATRAKILIDIS & Eftychia TSANANA, 2014. "Does output predict unemployment? A look at Okun's law in Greece," International Labour Review, International Labour Organization, vol. 153(3), pages 421-433, September.
    2. Menzie Chinn & Laurent Ferrara & Valérie Mignon, 2013. "Post-recession US employment through the lens of a non-linear Okun’s law," Working Papers hal-04141207, HAL.
    3. Ryan W Herzog, 2013. "An Analysis of Okun's Law, the Natural Rate, and Voting Preferences for the 50 States," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(4), pages 2504-2517.
    4. Celia Melguizo, 2017. "An analysis of Okun’s law for the Spanish provinces," Review of Regional Research: Jahrbuch für Regionalwissenschaft, Springer;Gesellschaft für Regionalforschung (GfR), vol. 37(1), pages 59-90, February.
    5. Brey, Björn & Hertweck, Matthias S., 2020. "The Extension Of Short-Time Work Schemes During The Great Recession: A Story Of Success?," Macroeconomic Dynamics, Cambridge University Press, vol. 24(2), pages 360-402, March.
    6. Giorgio Canarella & Stephen M. Miller, 2017. "Did Okun’s law die after the Great Recession?," Business Economics, Palgrave Macmillan;National Association for Business Economics, vol. 52(4), pages 216-226, October.
    7. Rui M. Pereira, 2013. "Okun's Law across the Business Cycle and during the Great Recession: A Markov Switching Analysis," Working Papers 139, Department of Economics, College of William and Mary.
    8. Berger, Tino & Everaert, Gerdie & Vierke, Hauke, 2016. "Testing for time variation in an unobserved components model for the U.S. economy," Journal of Economic Dynamics and Control, Elsevier, vol. 69(C), pages 179-208.
    9. Roger Perman & Gaetan Stephan & Christophe Tavéra, 2015. "Okun's Law—a Meta-analysis," Manchester School, University of Manchester, vol. 83(1), pages 101-126, January.
    10. Durech, Richard & Minea, Alexandru & Mustea, Lavinia & Slusna, Lubica, 2014. "Regional evidence on Okun's Law in Czech Republic and Slovakia," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 42(C), pages 57-65.
    11. Adama Zerbo, 2017. "Croissance économique et chômage : les fondements de la loi d'Okun et le modèle IS-LM-LO," Documents de travail 176, Groupe d'Economie du Développement de l'Université Montesquieu Bordeaux IV.
    12. Oberst, Christian & Oelgemöller, Jens, 2013. "Economic Growth and Regional Labor Market Development in German Regions: Okun’s Law in a Spatial Context," FCN Working Papers 5/2013, E.ON Energy Research Center, Future Energy Consumer Needs and Behavior (FCN).
    13. Rui Pereira, 2014. "Okun’s law, asymmetries and regional spillovers: evidence from Virginia metropolitan statistical areas and the District of Columbia," The Annals of Regional Science, Springer;Western Regional Science Association, vol. 52(2), pages 583-595, March.
    14. Donayre, Luiggi, 2022. "On the behavior of Okun's law across business cycles," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 112(C).
    15. Celia Melguizo Cháfer, 2015. "“An analysis of the Okun’s law for the Spanish provinces”," AQR Working Papers 201501, University of Barcelona, Regional Quantitative Analysis Group, revised Jan 2015.
    16. Eduardo Loría & Emmanuel Salas, 2014. "A Nonlinear Relationship: Unemployment and Economic Growth (Construction Sector) in Spain, 1995.1–2012.2," International Advances in Economic Research, Springer;International Atlantic Economic Society, vol. 20(4), pages 439-453, November.
    17. Laurence M. Ball & Daniel Leigh & Prakash Loungani, 2013. "Okun's Law: Fit at Fifty?," NBER Working Papers 18668, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    18. Valadkhani, Abbas & Smyth, Russell, 2015. "Switching and asymmetric behaviour of the Okun coefficient in the US: Evidence for the 1948–2015 period," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 50(C), pages 281-290.
    19. Koutroulis, Aristotelis & Panagopoulos, Yannis & Tsouma, Ekaterini, 2016. "Asymmetry in the response of unemployment to output changes in Greece: Evidence from hidden co-integration," The Journal of Economic Asymmetries, Elsevier, vol. 13(C), pages 81-88.
    20. Anderton, Robert & Aranki, Ted & Bonthuis, Boele & Jarvis, Valerie, 2014. "Disaggregating Okun's law: decomposing the impact of the expenditure components of GDP on euro area unemployment," Working Paper Series 1747, European Central Bank.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    Unemployment; Gross domestic product;

    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:fip:fedbwp:13-3. 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: Catherine Spozio (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/frbbous.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.