December 3 - 4, 2025
Graduate Center Masterclasses
Advances in Nowcasting Economic Activity
Date
December 3 - 4, 2025Dec 3: 10 a.m.-1 p.m. and 2-5 p.m.
Dec 4: 10 a.m.-1 p.m.
Location
Joan-Robinson-RaumDIW BerlinRoom 3.3.002aMohrenstr. 5810117 BerlinSpeakers
Thomas DrechselA key question for households, firms, and policy makers is: how is the economy doing now? This masterclass covers state-of-the-art methodologies to construct short-run forecasts -- or “nowcasts” -- of economic activity.
Course Objective
The course introduces the basic dynamic factor model framework that underlies modern nowcasting frameworks. It then covers how Bayesian econometric techniques can be applied to allow for slow-moving trends, changes in volatility, lead-lag dynamics and fat tails in macroeconomic data.
Please note:
Participation in the master class is only possible with a laptop and with matlab installed.
About the instructor
Thomas Drechsel is a macroeconomist and Assistant Professor at the Economics Department of the University of Maryland. His research focuses on credit frictions in business cycles, various aspects of monetary policy, the role of commodities for emerging market economies, as well as real-time monitoring of macroeconomic activity. His work has been published in the Review of Economic Studies, American Economic Journal: Macroeconomics, Journal of Monetary Economics, Journal of Finance, Journal of International Economics, and the Review of Economics and Statistics. Thomas is a German national and holds a PhD from the London School of Economics and Political Science.
More information is available on his personal webpage.
Registration
If you want to join this short course, please register with the Graduate Center on a first-come, first-serve basis: gradcenter@diw.de
Topics: From the institute
