Which Factors Drive Downside Risk in the U.S. Economy?
-
Series
-
Speaker(s)Christian T. Brownlees (LUISS Guido Carli, Italy)
-
FieldEconometrics, Data Science and Econometrics
-
LocationErasmus University Rotterdam, Campus Woudestein, ET-14
Rotterdam -
Date and time
April 02, 2026
12:00 - 13:00
Abstract
We study which common factors drive downside risk across a large panel of U.S. macroeconomic variables. We consider a broad set of candidate predictors, comprising both observed factors constructed from macroeconomic, financial, and text data, as well as unobserved factors associated with the panel. The relevance of the factors is assessed by how much they improve out-of-sample downside risk prediction accuracy. Factors are mapped into forecasts via quantile regression and location-scale regression. Results point to a single factor associated with macroeconomic volatility, most closely proxied by the macroeconomic uncertainty index (Jurado et al., 2015). Joint paper with Carlo Pavanello and Andre B.M. Souza.