Output Gap Measure Based on Survey Data

Following Nyman (2010), the paper provides an indicator of resource utilisation (RU) for the Polish economy based on survey and labour market data. The indicator is subsequently used to identify output gap. Using real-time dataset, we find that output gap constructed in this way is revised to a similar or (in recent years) lesser extent than a measure based on the Hodrick and Prescott filter and structural approach. Also, the output gap based on the RU indicator performs comparably to other approaches as a proxy of inflation pressure: real-time data evaluation exercise reveals that RMSE of Phillips curve inflation forecasts with the RU indicator-based output gap is similar to the RMSE of equivalent specifications with alternative gap measures.