FaMIDAS: A Mixed Frequency Factor Model with MIDAS Structure
36 Pages Posted: 9 May 2011
There are 2 versions of this paper
FaMIDAS: A Mixed Frequency Factor Model with MIDAS Structure
Famidas: A Mixed Frequency Factor Model with MIDAS Structure
Date Written: January 12, 2011
Abstract
In this paper a dynamic factor model with mixed frequency is proposed (FaMIDAS), where the past observations of high frequency indicators are used following the MIDAS approach. This structure is able to represent with richer dynamics the information content of the economic indicators and produces smoothed factors and forecasts. In addition, the Kalman filter is applied, which is particularly suited for dealing with unbalanced data set and revisions in the preliminary data. In the empirical application for the Italian quarterly GDP the short-term forecasting performance is evaluated against other mixed frequency models in a pseudo-real time experiment, also allowing for pooled forecast from factor models.
Keywords: mixed frequency models, dynamic factor models, MIDAS, forecasting
JEL Classification: E32, E37, C53
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation