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The Real‐Time Properties of the Bank of Canada's Staff Output Gap Estimates
Author(s) -
CHAMPAGNE JULIEN,
POULINBELLISLE GUILLAUME,
SEKKEL RODRIGO
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of money, credit and banking
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.763
H-Index - 108
eISSN - 1538-4616
pISSN - 0022-2879
DOI - 10.1111/jmcb.12493
Subject(s) - output gap , predictability , inflation (cosmology) , recession , economics , potential output , econometrics , phillips curve , sample (material) , macroeconomics , monetary policy , statistics , mathematics , physics , thermodynamics , theoretical physics
We study the revision properties of the Bank of Canada's staff output gap estimates since the mid‐1980s and show that the average revision has been significantly smaller since the early 2000s. Alternatively, revisions from econometric output gap estimates have not experienced a similar improvement. We show that the overestimation of potential output in real time following the 1991–92 recession explains the large revisions in the first half of the sample. Although Phillips‐curve inflation forecasts slightly worsen when conditioned on real time instead of final gaps, their relative poor performance reflects the general lack of inflation predictability rather than real‐time gap measurement issues.