Estimating Brazilian Monthly GDPa State-Space Approach

Resumo

This paper has several original contributions. The fi…rst is to employ a superior interpolation method that enables to estimate, nowcast and forecast monthly Brazilian GDP for 1980-2012 in an integrated way; see Bernanke, Gertler and Watson (1997, Brookings Papers on Economic Activity). Second, along the spirit of Mariano and Murasawa (2003, Journal of Applied Econometrics), we propose and test a myriad of interpolation models and interpolation auxiliary series –all coincident with GDP froma business-cycle dating point of view. Based on these results, we fi…nally choose the most appropriate monthly indicator for Brazilian GDP. Third, this monthly GDP estimate is compared to an economic activity indicator widely used by practitioners in Brazil - the Brazilian Economic Activity Index - (IBC-Br). We found that the our monthly GDP tracks economic activity better than IBC-Br. This happens by construction, since our state-space approach imposes the restriction (discipline) that our monthly estimate must add up to the quarterly observed series in any given quarter, whichmay not hold regarding IBC-Br. Moreover, our method has the advantage to be easily implemented: it only requires conditioning on two observed series for estimation, while estimating IBC-Br requires the availability of hundreds of monthly series. Third, in a nowcasting and forecasting exercise, we illustrate the advantages of our integrated approach. Finally, we compare the chronology of recessions of our monthly estimatewith those done elsewhere.

Ficha do documento

Tipo

Artigo científico

Ano

2016

Instituição

EGV EPGE

Fonte

Revista Brasileira de Economia

Idioma

Português

Acesso

Não informado

Identificador

oai:ojs.periodicos.fgv.br:article/29022

Temas

Dados

Palavras-chave

GDP InterpolationState-space RepresentationKalman FilterComposite and Leading IndicatorsNowcastingForecasting