Nowcasting Using Mixed Frequency Methods: An Application to the Scottish Economy

Abstract

".. . some of our statistics are too late to be as useful as they ought to be. We are always, as it were, looking up a train in last year's Bradshaw [timetable]"

P. C. Mahalanobis in the Context of Current Econometrics Research*

“…Together, a strong focus on reliable statistics at the regional level was apparent from the very beginning (Mahalanobis, 1933). Allan, Koop, McIntyre and Smith (2019, in this issue) makes an excellent current contribution to statistical accounts highlighting all of the above issues -focus on growth rate of regional income, computation, accuracy, timeliness and quantification of uncertainty, but based on statistical models -a great tribute indeed to the legacy of Mahalanobis. Specifically, Allan et al (2019) use current methodology to nowcast economic growth in Scotland, which is classified in official statistics as a region of the United Kingdom, including nowcasts in "pseudo real-time," an important aspect of their model is also the use of mixed frequency data.…”