DP9112 Now-casting and the real-time data flow

Author(s):	Marta Banbura, Domenico Giannone, Michele Modugno, Lucrezia Reichlin
Publication Date:	September 2012
Keyword(s):	Dynamic factor model, High-Dimensional Data, Macroeconomic forecasting, Macroeconomic News, Mixed-Frequency, Real-Time Data, State-Space Models
JEL(s):	C01, C33, C53, E32, E37
Programme Areas:	International Macroeconomics
Link to this Page:	cepr.org/active/publications/discussion_papers/dp.php?dpno=9112

The term now-casting is a contraction for now and forecasting and has been used for a long-time in meteorology and recently also in economics In this paper we survey recent developments on economic now-casting with special focus on those models that formalize key features of how market participants and policy makers read macroeconomic data releases in real time, which involves: monitoring many data, forming expectations about them and revising the assessment on the state of the economy whenever realizations diverge sizeably from those expectations.