Archive for March 11th, 2021

FRED-QD: A Quarterly Database for Macroeconomic Research

March 11, 2021

Michael W. McCracken and Serena Ng in this St Louis Fed paper:

In this article, we present and describe FRED-QD, a large, quarterly frequency macroeconomic database that is currently available and regularly updated at https://research.stlouisfed.org/econ/mccracken/fred-databases/. The data provided are closely modeled to that used in Stock and Watson (2012a). As in our previous work on FRED-MD (McCracken and Ng, 2016), which is at a monthly frequency, our goal is simply to provide a publicly available source of macroeconomic “big data” that is updated in real time using the FRED® data service.

We show that factors extracted from the FRED-QD dataset exhibit similar behavior to those extracted from the original Stock and Watson dataset. The dominant factors are shown to be insensitive to outliers, but outliers do affect the relative influence of the series, as indicated by leverage scores. We then investigate the role unit root tests play in the choice of transformation codes, with an emphasis on identifying instances in which the unit root-based codes differ from those already used in the literature. Finally, we show that factors extracted from our dataset are useful for forecasting a range of macroeconomic series and that the choice of transformation codes can contribute substantially to the accuracy of these forecasts.

FRED is creating some kind of revolution in macroeconomic research.

New Zealand Superannuation Fund sets climate benchmarks for others to follow

March 11, 2021

Håvard Halland and Diego López in this OMFIF article comapred green investment strategies of NZ Superannuation Fund with that of Norway’s Government Pension Fund Global. However the lessons are more global:

New Zealand Superannuation Fund has shown that it is possible for a sovereign fund to combine ambitious climate targets with high returns. For the past three years, NZSF has generated a 14.1% annualised return before management costs and inflation, with 19% allocated to illiquid assets.

Norway’s sovereign fund, Government Pension Fund Global, produced gross annualised returns of 11.8% during the same period, with 2.5% invested into private real estate. Both funds have established benchmark portfolios on which they base their investment strategies.

Since 2017, NZSF has had a separate low-carbon benchmark portfolio, which comprises 40% of the fund’s total assets. NZSF aims to reduce emissions from its low-carbon portfolio by 40% by 2025, and fossil reserves by 80%. Since its inception, this portfolio has generated 0.6% higher returns than the fund’s standard benchmark portfolio, indicating that markets misprice climate risk.

Unlike NZSF, GPFG does not have specific emission targets and has focused primarily on climate risk rather than on climate impact. Norges Bank Investment Management, which manages GPFG, is among the least supportive investors of environmental shareholder resolutions, according to advisory firm Proxy Insight.

This is all interesting. Post-2008 crisis financial sector was highly criticised and its role questioned in real economy. Now, finance is being positioned to nudge  changes and greening of real economy..


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