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Foreign PMIs: A reliable indicator for exports?

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  • Dr. Sandra Hanslin Grossmann
  • Dr. Rolf Scheufele

Abstract

Foreign economic activity is a major determinant of export development. This paper presents an indicator for now- and forecasting exports, which is based on survey data that captures foreign economic perspectives. We construct an indicator by weighting foreign PMIs of main trading partners with their respective export shares. For two very trade exposed countries (Germany and Switzerland) the paper shows that the indicator based on foreign PMIs is strongly correlated with exports (total as well as goods exports). In an out-of-sample forecast comparison we employ MIDAS models to forecast the two different definitions of exports. We document that our export indicator performs very well relative to univariate benchmarks and relative to other major leading indicators using hard and soft data.

Suggested Citation

  • Dr. Sandra Hanslin Grossmann & Dr. Rolf Scheufele, 2016. "Foreign PMIs: A reliable indicator for exports?," Working Papers 2016-01, Swiss National Bank.
    • Handle: RePEc:snb:snbwpa:2016-01
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    Cited by:

    1. Grimme, Christian & Lehmann, Robert & Noeller, Marvin, 2021. "Forecasting imports with information from abroad," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 98(C), pages 109-117.
    2. Robert Lehmann, 2021. "Forecasting exports across Europe: What are the superior survey indicators?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 60(5), pages 2429-2453, May.
    3. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2020. "ifo Handbuch der Konjunkturumfragen," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 88.

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    More about this item

    Keywords

    Business tendency surveys; mixed frequencies; nowcasting; forecasting; MIDAS; exports;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • F14 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Empirical Studies of Trade
    • F17 - International Economics - - Trade - - - Trade Forecasting and Simulation
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods

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