Robust Real-Time Estimates of the German Output Gap based on a Multivariate Trend-Cycle Decomposition *

Abstract

Trienens and Lieve Vanhooren for research assistance. We are grateful to Elmar Mertens, Julia Richter, Maik Wolters and Malte Knüppel for great discussions. Moreover, we thank workshop participants at University of Göttingen, Deutsche Bundesbank, German Council of Economic Experts, the 15 th Ruhr Graduate School Doctoral Conference in Economics, the 30 th Annual Symposium of the Society for Non-Linear Dynamics and Econometrics and at the 8 th Annual Meeting of the International Association for Applied Econometrics for helpful comments. We acknowledge financial support from Deutsche Bundesbank. The usual disclaimers apply. In particular, the views expressed in the article at hand represent the authors' personal opinions and do not necessarily reflect the views of the German Council of Economic Experts, Deutsche Bundesbank or the Eurosystem. Note that the original draft was written before Christian Ochsner joined the the scientific staff of the German Council of Economic Experts. We have no conflicts of interest to declare.

Keywords: output gap, Germany, nowcast, mixed frequency, vector-autoregression JEL classification: E32, E37, C53

JEL Classification: E32,E37,C53