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

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 C...

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Main Authors:	Sampi, James, Jooste, Charl
Format:	Working Paper
Language:	English
Published:	World Bank, Washington, DC 2020
Subjects:	GOOGLE MOBILITY INDEX CORONAVIRUS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PRODUCTION GROWTH AIR QUALITY MONITORING
Online Access:	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/619261589478136374/Nowcasting-Economic-Activity-in-Times-of-COVID-19-An-Approximation-from-the-Google-Community-Mobility-Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33794

id	okr-10986-33794
recordtype	oai_dc
spelling	okr-10986-337942022-09-20T00:11:24Z Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report Sampi, James Jooste, Charl GOOGLE MOBILITY INDEX CORONAVIRUS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PRODUCTION GROWTH AIR QUALITY MONITORING 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. 2020-05-21T18:55:16Z 2020-05-21T18:55:16Z 2020-05 Working Paper http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/619261589478136374/Nowcasting-Economic-Activity-in-Times-of-COVID-19-An-Approximation-from-the-Google-Community-Mobility-Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33794 English Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9247 CC BY 3.0 IGO http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/igo World Bank World Bank, Washington, DC Publications & Research Publications & Research :: Policy Research Working Paper Latin America & Caribbean Caribbean Latin America
repository_type	Digital Repository
institution_category	Foreign Institution
institution	Digital Repositories
building	World Bank Open Knowledge Repository
collection	World Bank
language	English
topic	GOOGLE MOBILITY INDEX CORONAVIRUS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PRODUCTION GROWTH AIR QUALITY MONITORING
spellingShingle	GOOGLE MOBILITY INDEX CORONAVIRUS INDUSTRIAL PRODUCTION PRODUCTION GROWTH AIR QUALITY MONITORING Sampi, James Jooste, Charl Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report
geographic_facet	Latin America & Caribbean Caribbean Latin America
relation	Policy Research Working Paper;No. 9247
description	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.
format	Working Paper
author	Sampi, James Jooste, Charl
author_facet	Sampi, James Jooste, Charl
author_sort	Sampi, James
title	Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report
title_short	Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report
title_full	Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report
title_fullStr	Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report
title_full_unstemmed	Nowcasting Economic Activity in Times of COVID-19 : An Approximation from the Google Community Mobility Report
title_sort	nowcasting economic activity in times of covid-19 : an approximation from the google community mobility report
publisher	World Bank, Washington, DC
publishDate	2020
url	http://documents.worldbank.org/curated/en/619261589478136374/Nowcasting-Economic-Activity-in-Times-of-COVID-19-An-Approximation-from-the-Google-Community-Mobility-Report http://hdl.handle.net/10986/33794
_version_	1764479531831263232

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

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