ABSTRACT
This conclusion presents some closing thoughts on the concepts discussed in this book. The book discusses how many of the national data series relate to each other, most notably to nominal and real gross domestic product (GDP), as well as some of the peculiarities of the series that result in idiosyncratic movements, particularly the existence of occasional outliers. For instance, monthly personal consumption expenditures (PCE) data would likely be of more importance to making an estimate of the current quarter's real GDP growth than would be multi-family housing starts. The technology used to build factor models provides a sophisticated means of assigning weights to different data series on an ongoing basis. However, even if a forecaster relies purely on formal models, the results need to be communicated to others (policymakers, investors, news media, etc.) who are likely not knowledgeable about the techniques.
