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Forecasting With A Real-Time Data Set For Macroeconomists, Tom Stark, Dean D. Croushore

Economics Faculty Publications

This paper discusses how forecasts are affected by the use of real-time data rather than latest-available data. The key issue is this: in the literature on developing forecasting models, new models are put together based on the results they yield using the data set available to the model’s developer. But those are not the data that were available to a forecaster in real time.

How much difference does the vintage of the data make for such forecasts? We explore this issue with a variety of exercises designed to answer this question. In particular, we find that the use of real-time …