Boosting and Forecasting German Industrial Output: What Does a Closer Look at the Details Tell Us?

This article shows that boosting, a more up-to-date method of using large data sets for economic forecasts, can make a major contribution to improving forecasts of industrial output. More specifically, it looks at the question of which indicators from the boosting algorithm were selected to forecast German industrial output in the period of 1996 to 2014. The results show that both hard indicators like order intake or revenues and survey indicators regularly feature in the forecasting model.