Abstract:
We analyze the predictive power of seven leading indicators for economic activity inthe Euro Area developed by different banks, institutions and research centers. Ourcomparison is conducted in a bivariate vector autoregressive framework. Indicators arecompared by means of an in-sample and an out-of-sample forecasting experiment.Predictive accuracy is compared by recently proposed tests for superior predictive ability.Our results suggest that nearly all indicators have good in-sample properties and that amajority of them is able to outperform a naive univariate autoregressive model out-of-sample.Additionally, we find that indicators perform better in boom periods than inrecessions. The OECD and FAZ indicators are both composite indicators and deliver themost accurate forecasts.