Where are we now? Real-time estimates of the macro economy, typescript

This paper describes a method for calculating daily real-time estimates of the current state of the U.S. economy. The estimates are computed from data on scheduled U.S. macroeconomic announce-ments using an econometric model that allows for variable reporting lags, temporal aggregation, and other complications in the data. The model can be applied to \u85nd real-time estimates of GDP, ination, unemployment or any other macroeconomic variable of interest. In this paper I focus on the problem of estimating the current level of and growth rate in GDP. I construct daily real-time estimates of GDP that incorporate public information known on the day in question. The real-time estimates produced by the model are uniquely-suited to studying how perceived developments the macro economy are linked to asset prices over a wide range of frequencies. The estimates also provide, for the \u85rst time, daily time series that can be used in practical policy decisions