Future directions in nowcasting economic activity: A systematic literature review

Abstract

This paper presents a systematic review of research papers on nowcasting economic activity. The study summarizes the state-of-the-art nowcasting approaches and methods, describes the indicators used in this analysis, highlights the existing gaps, and proposes future research directions. Based on an analysis of 193 articles on nowcasting in economics that were published in the journals indexed in the Web of Science Core Collection database, future research directions in nowcasting are described in this paper. This research indicates that the focus of economic activity nowcasting should rely on the use of real-time data and alternative indicators in order to enhance the predictive ability.