An automatic leading indicator of economic activity: forecasting GDP growth for European countries*
经济活动的自动先行指标:欧洲国家GDP增长预测
In the construction of a leading indicator model of economic activity, economists must select among a pool of variables which lead output growth. Usually the pool of variables is large and a selection of a subset must be carried out. This paper proposes an automatic leading indicator model which, rather than preselection, uses a dynamic factor model to summarize the information content of a pool of variables. Results using quarterly data for France, Germany, Italy and the…