Nowcasting Finnish real economic activity using traffic loop data - ARCHIVED

Description: Statistics Finland started publishing nowcasts of the trend indicator of output (TIO), the monthly indicator of real economic activity, to answer users´ needs during the Covid-19 pandemic. The indicator was first published in April 2020, at the very beginning of the pandemic in Finland, and had a monthly release schedule until June 2021. The TIO nowcasts are produced using open-source data on truck traffic volumes at about 100 automatic measuring points in the Helsinki/Uusimaa -region and the Economic Sentiment Indicator for Finland. Estimation is done using a machine learning approach and the methodology is based on previous work done by Statistics Finland and ETLA Economic Research.

Key Words: nowcasting; flash estimates; machine learning; experimental statistics.

Issue Number: 2021001