Incorporating Macro-Financial Linkages into Forecasts Using Financial Conditions Indices : The Case of France /

How can information on financial conditions be used to better understand macroeconomic developments and improve macroeconomic projections? We investigate this question for France by constructing country-specific financial conditions indices (FCIs) that are tailored to movements in GDP, investment, p...

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Détails bibliographiques
Auteur principal: Kongsamut, Piyabha
Autres auteurs: Mumssen, Christian, Paret, Anne-Charlotte, Tressel, Thierry
Format: Revue
Langue:English
Publié: Washington, D.C. : International Monetary Fund, 2017.
Collection:IMF Working Papers; Working Paper ; No. 2017/269
Accès en ligne:Full text available on IMF
Description
Résumé:How can information on financial conditions be used to better understand macroeconomic developments and improve macroeconomic projections? We investigate this question for France by constructing country-specific financial conditions indices (FCIs) that are tailored to movements in GDP, investment, private consumption and exports respectively. We rely on a VAR approach to estimate the weights of the financial components of each FCI, including equity market returns (which turn out having a relatively strong weight across all FCIs), private sector risk premiums, long-term interest rates, and banks' credit standards. We find that the tailored FCIs are useful as leading indicators of GDP, investment, and exports, and as a contemporaneous indicator of private consumption. Credit volumes turn out to be lagging indicators of growth. The indices inform us on macro-financial linkages in France and are used to improve the accuracy of quarterly forecasting models and high-frequency 'nowcast' models. We show that FCI-augmented models could have significantly improved forecasts during and after the global financial crisis.
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Description matérielle:1 online resource (36 pages)
Format:Mode of access: Internet
ISSN:1018-5941
Accès:Electronic access restricted to authorized BRAC University faculty, staff and students