The colloquium will focus on theoretical and empirical issues related to business cycle analysis and forecasting. Papers presented must be characterised by an innovative theoretical content or by a pertinent and conclusive empirical study focusing preferably on:
- European Union, euro area and USA
- European countries
- emerging and developing economies
- the interaction between countries and economic regions/areas
- the global comparisons of short and medium term movements
- the globalisation effect on business cycle analysis and forecasting
Methodological studies are particularly welcomed, especially when the proposed approach has potential empirical applications. Empirical studies are particularly welcomed when dealing with aspects related to the recent economic crisis.
Papers are solicited in the following areas:
| Relationship between statistical methods and business cycle theory | - Real business cycle and long-run constraint
- Alternative generating processes for trend and cycle and their economic interpretation
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| Multivariate estimation of permanent and transitory components | - Bayesian approach to the estimation of trend and cycle
- A generalisation of the trend and cycle decomposition approach
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| Estimation of potential output and output gap | - Multivariate estimation of potential output
- NAIRU estimation
- Real-time evaluation
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| Dating, detecting and forecasting turning points | - Univariate versus multivariate methods
- Business cycle, Growth cycle and Acceleration cycle
- Building and updating a cycle chronologies
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| Growth and cyclical convergence | - Common features
- Distance measures
- Classification of trend and cycles
- Convergence and synchronisation measures
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| Transmission of cyclical fluctuations | - Multi-country and multi-sectoral models
- Empirical investigation of transmission mechanism
- Presence of common cycles among sectors and countries
- Leading and lagging structures for countries and sectors
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| Forecasting and nowcasting methods for economic activity and business cycle movements | - Linear vs. non-linear forecasting
- Combining forecasting techniques
- Evaluation of competitive forecasts
- Density forecasts
- Use of mixed frequency models
- Construction of high frequency indicators (monthly GDP)
- Flash estimates and nowcasting of key economic variables
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| Role and construction of composite, coincident and leading indicators | - Methods for indicator selection
- Real-time evaluation of composite, coincident and leading indicators
- Nowcasting the economic conditions
- The role of composite indicators in official statistics
- Usefulness of sentiment indicators in forecasting economic conditions
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| The impact of globalisation on business cycle analysis and forecasting | |
| Difference and similarities in the impact of the crisis at national level and the role of statistical information | |
| Effect of data uncertainty and data revisions on business cycle analysis and forecasting | - Reliability of macroeconomic data
- Importance of revisions analysis to improve business cycle analysis and forecasting
- Real time databases and real-time simulation
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| The role of Principal European Economic Indicators (PEEIs), Principal Global Indicators and UN data template for high frequency statistics to timely detect and forecast business cycle |
| The effect of seasonal adjustment on business cycle analysis especially in recessionary phases | |
| Online visualisation tools to describe economic movements | |
