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Working Paper
Seeing inside the black box: Using diffusion index methodology to construct factor proxies in large scale macroeconomic time series environments
In economics, common factors are often assumed to underlie the co-movements of a set of macroeconomic variables. For this reason, many authors have used estimated factors in the construction of prediction models. In this paper, we begin by surveying the extant literature on diffusion indexes. We then outline a number of approaches to the selection of factor proxies (observed variables that proxy unobserved estimated factors) using the statistics developed in Bai and Ng (2006a,b). Our approach to factor proxy selection is examined via a small Monte Carlo experiment, where evidence supporting ...