E37 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

• August 15, 2013

  CSI: A Model for Tracking Short-Term Growth in Canadian Real GDP

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 André Binette, Jae Chang

  Canada’s Short-Term Indicator (CSI) is a new model that exploits the information content of 32 indicators to produce daily updates to forecasts of quarterly real GDP growth. The model is a data-intensive, judgment-free approach to short-term forecasting. While CSI’s forecasts at the start of the quarter are not very accurate, the model’s accuracy increases appreciably as more information becomes available. CSI is the latest addition to a wide range of models and information sources that the Bank of Canada uses, combined with expert judgment, to produce its short-term forecasts.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C53, E, E1, E17, E3, E37
• August 15, 2013

  The Accuracy of Short-Term Forecast Combinations

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 Eleonora Granziera, Corinne Luu, Pierre St-Amant

  This article examines whether combining forecasts of real GDP from different models can improve forecast accuracy and considers which model-combination methods provide the best performance. In line with previous literature, the authors find that combining forecasts generally improves forecast accuracy relative to various benchmarks. Unlike several previous studies, however, they find that, rather than assigning equal weights to each model, unequal weighting based on the past forecast performance of models tends to improve accuracy when forecasts across models are substantially different.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods JEL Code(s): C, C5, C52, C53, E, E3, E37
• August 15, 2013

  Monitoring Short-Term Economic Developments in Foreign Economies

  Bank of Canada Review - Summer 2013 Russell Barnett, Pierre Guérin

  The Bank of Canada uses several short-term forecasting models for the monitoring of key foreign economies - the United States, the euro area, Japan and China. The design of the forecasting models used for each region is influenced by the level of detail required, as well as the timeliness and volatility of data. Forecasts from different models are typically combined to mitigate model uncertainty, and judgment is applied to the model forecasts to incorporate information that is not directly reflected in the most recent indicators.

  Content Type(s): Publications, Bank of Canada Review articles Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles JEL Code(s): E, E3, E37

• Extracting Information from the Business Outlook Survey Using Statistical Approaches

  Staff Discussion Paper 2012-8 Lise Pichette

  Since the autumn of 1997, the regional offices of the Bank of Canada have conducted quarterly consultations with businesses across Canada. These consultations, summarized in the Business Outlook Survey (BOS), are structured around a survey questionnaire that covers topics of importance to the Bank, notably business activity, pressures on production capacity, prices and inflation, and credit conditions.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, Regional economic developments JEL Code(s): C, C4, C43, C8, C82, E, E3, E37

• Commodities and Monetary Policy: Implications for Inflation and Price Level Targeting

  Staff Working Paper 2012-16 Donald Coletti, René Lalonde, Paul Masson, Dirk Muir, Stephen Snudden

  We examine the relative ability of simple inflation targeting (IT) and price level targeting (PLT) monetary policy rules to minimize both inflation variability and business cycle fluctuations in Canada for shocks that have important consequences for global commodity prices.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Economic models, Inflation and prices, International topics, Monetary policy framework JEL Code(s): E, E1, E17, E3, E31, E37, E5, E52, F, F4, F41, Q, Q4, Q43

• Short-Term Forecasting of the Japanese Economy Using Factor Models

  Staff Working Paper 2012-7 Claudia Godbout, Marco J. Lombardi

  While the usefulness of factor models has been acknowledged over recent years, little attention has been devoted to the forecasting power of these models for the Japanese economy. In this paper, we aim at assessing the relative performance of factor models over different samples, including the recent financial crisis.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C50, C53, E, E3, E37, E4, E47

• Mixed Frequency Forecasts for Chinese GDP

  Staff Working Paper 2011-11 Philipp Maier

  We evaluate different approaches for using monthly indicators to predict Chinese GDP for the current and the next quarter (‘nowcasts’ and ‘forecasts’, respectively). We use three types of mixed-frequency models, one based on an economic activity indicator (Liu et al., 2007), one based on averaging over indicator models (Stock and Watson, 2004), and a static factor model (Stock and Watson, 2002).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C50, C53, E, E3, E37, E4, E47

• 'Lean' versus 'Rich' Data Sets: Forecasting during the Great Moderation and the Great Recession

  Staff Working Paper 2010-37 Marco J. Lombardi, Philipp Maier

  We evaluate forecasts for the euro area in data-rich and ‘data-lean' environments by comparing three different approaches: a simple PMI model based on Purchasing Managers' Indices (PMIs), a dynamic factor model with euro area data, and a dynamic factor model with data from the euro plus data from national economies (pseudo-real time data).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff working papers Topic(s): Econometric and statistical methods, International topics JEL Code(s): C, C5, C50, C53, E, E3, E37, E4, E47

• Nowcasting the Global Economy

  Staff Discussion Paper 2010-12 James Rossiter

  Forecasts of global economic activity and inflation are important inputs when conducting monetary policy in small open economies such as Canada. As part of the Bank of Canada's broad agenda to augment its short-term forecasting tools, the author constructs simple mixed-frequency forecasting equations for quarterly global output, imports, and inflation using the monthly global Purchasing Managers Index (PMI).

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Economic models, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E37, F, F4, F47

• Le pouvoir de prévision des indices PMI

  Staff Discussion Paper 2010-3 Claudia Godbout, Jocelyn Jacob

  The forecast of world economic growth plays a key role in the conduct of Canadian monetary policy. In this context, the authors study the usefulness of the monthly Purchasing Managers’ Indexes (PMIs) in predicting short-term real GDP growth in the euro area, Japan, the United Kingdom, and China, as well as in the world economy.

  Content Type(s): Staff research, Staff discussion papers Topic(s): Business fluctuations and cycles, International topics JEL Code(s): E, E3, E37, F, F4, F47