Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19: An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report

James Sampi and Charl Jooste

No 9247, Policy Research Working Paper Series from The World Bank

Abstract: This paper proposes a leading indicator, the "Google Mobility Index," for nowcasting monthly industrial production growth rates in selected economies in Latin America and the Caribbean. The index is constructed using the Google COVID-19 Community Mobility Report database via a Kalman filter. The Google database is publicly available starting from February 15, 2020. The paper uses a backcasting methodology to increase the historical number of observations and then augments a lag of one week in the mobility data with other high-frequency data (air quality) over January 1, 2019 to April 30, 2020. Finally, mixed data sampling regression is implemented for nowcasting industrial production growth rates. The Google Mobility Index is a good predictor of industrial production. The results suggest a significant decline in output of between 5 and 7 percent for March and April, respectively, while indicating a trough in output in mid-April.

Keywords: International Trade and Trade Rules; Health Care Services Industry; Pharmaceuticals Industry; ICT Policy and Strategies; ICT Legal and Regulatory Framework; Economic Conditions and Volatility (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2020-05-14
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-ets, nep-hea and nep-ict
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (14)

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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:wbk:wbrwps:9247

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