A note on GDP now-/forecasting with dynamic versus static factor models along a business cycle

We build a small-scale factor model for the GDP of one of the hardest hit economies during the latest recession to study the exact dynamic versus static factor model performance along a business cycle, with an emphasis placing on nowcasting performance during a pronounced switch of business cycle phases due to the latest recession. We compare the factor models' nowcasting performance to a random walk, autoregressive and the best-performing nowcasting models at our hands, which are vector autoregressive (VAR) models. It is shown that a small-scale static factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model tends to improve upon the nowcasting performance of the VAR models when the model span and the nowcasting period stretch beyond a single business cycle phase, while exact dynamic factor models tend to fail to detect the timing and depth of the recession regardless of ARMA specifications. As regards the case when the model span and the nowcasting period are contained within a single business cycle phase, static and dynamic factor models appear to show similar performance with potentially slight superiority of dynamic factor models if the factor-forming set of variables and factor dynamics are carefully selected.nowcasting; business cycle; static versus dynamic factors; small-scale FAVAR; VAR; GDP

Seasonal decomposition with a modified Hodrick-Prescott filter

I describe preliminary results for seasonal decomposition procedure using a modified Hodrick-Prescott (Leser) filter. The procedure is simpler to implement compared to two currently most popular seasonal decomposition procedures - X-11 filters developed by the U.S. Census Bureau and SEATS developed by the Bank of Spain. A case study for Latvia's quarterly gross domestic product shows the procedure is able to extract a stable seasonal component, yet allowing for structural changes in seasonality

Asymmetric Baxter-King filter

The paper proposes an extension of the symmetric Baxter-King band pass filter to an asymmetric Baxter-King filter. The optimal correction scheme of the ideal filter weights is the same as in the symmetric version, i.e, cut the ideal filter at the appropriate length and add a constant to all filter weights to ensure zero weight on zero frequency. Since the symmetric Baxter-King filter is unable to extract the desired signal at the very ends of the series, the extension to an asymmetric filter is useful whenever the real time estimation is needed. The paper uses Monte Carlo simulation to compare the proposed filter's properties in extracting business cycle frequencies to the ones of the original Baxter-King filter and Christiano-Fitzgerald filter. Simulation results show that the asymmetric Baxter-King filter is superior to the asymmetric default specification of Christiano-Fitzgerald filter in real time signal extraction exercises

A note on GDP now-/forecasting with dynamic versus static factor models along a business cycle

We build a small-scale factor model for the GDP of one of the hardest hit economies during the latest recession to study the exact dynamic versus static factor model performance along a business cycle, with an emphasis placing on nowcasting performance during a pronounced switch of business cycle phases due to the latest recession. We compare the factor models' nowcasting performance to a random walk, autoregressive and the best-performing nowcasting models at our hands, which are vector autoregressive (VAR) models. It is shown that a small-scale static factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model tends to improve upon the nowcasting performance of the VAR models when the model span and the nowcasting period stretch beyond a single business cycle phase, while exact dynamic factor models tend to fail to detect the timing and depth of the recession regardless of ARMA specifications. As regards the case when the model span and the nowcasting period are contained within a single business cycle phase, static and dynamic factor models appear to show similar performance with potentially slight superiority of dynamic factor models if the factor-forming set of variables and factor dynamics are carefully selected

A note on GDP now-/forecasting with dynamic versus static factor models along a business cycle

We build a small-scale factor model for the GDP of one of the hardest hit economies during the latest recession to study the exact dynamic versus static factor model performance along a business cycle, with an emphasis placing on nowcasting performance during a pronounced switch of business cycle phases due to the latest recession. We compare the factor models' nowcasting performance to a random walk, autoregressive and the best-performing nowcasting models at our hands, which are vector autoregressive (VAR) models. It is shown that a small-scale static factor-augmented VAR (FAVAR) model tends to improve upon the nowcasting performance of the VAR models when the model span and the nowcasting period stretch beyond a single business cycle phase, while exact dynamic factor models tend to fail to detect the timing and depth of the recession regardless of ARMA specifications. As regards the case when the model span and the nowcasting period are contained within a single business cycle phase, static and dynamic factor models appear to show similar performance with potentially slight superiority of dynamic factor models if the factor-forming set of variables and factor dynamics are carefully selected

Asymmetric Baxter-King filter

The paper proposes an extension of the symmetric Baxter-King band pass filter to an asymmetric Baxter-King filter. The optimal correction scheme of the ideal filter weights is the same as in the symmetric version, i.e, cut the ideal filter at the appropriate length and add a constant to all filter weights to ensure zero weight on zero frequency. Since the symmetric Baxter-King filter is unable to extract the desired signal at the very ends of the series, the extension to an asymmetric filter is useful whenever the real time estimation is needed. The paper uses Monte Carlo simulation to compare the proposed filter's properties in extracting business cycle frequencies to the ones of the original Baxter-King filter and Christiano-Fitzgerald filter. Simulation results show that the asymmetric Baxter-King filter is superior to the asymmetric default specification of Christiano-Fitzgerald filter in real time signal extraction exercises