Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/43536 
Year of Publication: 
2010
Series/Report no.: 
Nota di Lavoro No. 2010,31
Publisher: 
Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM), Milano
Abstract: 
We suggest the use of an Internet job-search indicator (the Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample forecasting comparison analyzing many models that adopt both our preferred leading indicator (GI), the more standard initial claims or combinations of both. We find that models augmented with the GI outperform the traditional ones in predicting the monthly unemployment rate, even in most state-level forecasts and in comparison with the Survey of Professional Forecasters.
Subjects: 
Google Econometrics
Forecast Comparison
Keyword Search
US Unemployment
Time Series Models
JEL: 
C22
C53
E27
E37
J60
J64
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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