A Financial Conditions Index for Poland
International Monetary Fund
Download Document| Date Published | 2013 |
| Version | |
| Primary Author | Giang Ho |
| Other Authors | Yinqiu Lu |
| Theme | Housing Finance and the Economy |
| Country | Poland |
Abstract
This paper constructs a financial conditions index for Poland to explore the link between financial conditions and real economic activity. The index in constructed by applying two complementary approaches—factor analysis and vector auto-regression approach. We evaluate the index’s forecasting performance against a composite leading indicator developed by the OECD. We found that the FCI is highly correlated with GDP growth, attesting to the importance of financial sector in Poland’s economy. In-sample and out-of-sample forecasting exercises indicate that the FCI can outperform the CLI in predicting near-term GDP growth.