Forecasting Macedonian Business Cycle Turning Points Using Qual Var Model

This paper aims at assessing the usefulness of leading indicators in business cycle research and forecast. Initially we test the predictive power of the economic sentiment indicator (ESI) within a static probit model as a leading indicator, commonly perceived to be able to provide a reliable summary...

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Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Petrovska Magdalena, Krstevska Aneta, Naumovski Nikola
Format: Article
Language:English
Published: Sciendo 2016-09-01
Series:Journal of Central Banking Theory and Practice
Subjects:
f42
c25
c22
Online Access:https://doi.org/10.1515/jcbtp-2016-0020
Description
Summary:This paper aims at assessing the usefulness of leading indicators in business cycle research and forecast. Initially we test the predictive power of the economic sentiment indicator (ESI) within a static probit model as a leading indicator, commonly perceived to be able to provide a reliable summary of the current economic conditions. We further proceed analyzing how well an extended set of indicators performs in forecasting turning points of the Macedonian business cycle by employing the Qual VAR approach of Dueker (2005). In continuation, we evaluate the quality of the selected indicators in pseudo-out-of-sample context. The results show that the use of survey-based indicators as a complement to macroeconomic data work satisfactory well in capturing the business cycle developments in Macedonia.
ISSN:2336-9205