Macroeconomic Stars

Summary:  View help for Summary Summary:
Quarterly time series (starting in 1959Q4) of estimates of macroeconomic stars and output gap. 

These estimates of stars and other model objects were developed using a semi-structural model to jointly estimate “stars” — long-run levels of output (its growth rate), the unemployment rate, the real interest rate, productivity growth, price inflation, and wage inflation. It features links between survey expectations and stars, time-variation in macroeconomic relationships, and stochastic volatility. Survey data help discipline stars’ estimates and have been crucial in estimating a high-dimensional model since the pandemic. The model has desirable real-time properties, competitive forecasting performance, and superior fit to the data compared to variants without the empirical features mentioned above. 

The paper that developed the model is available from the Working Paper Series of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland - A Unified Framework to Estimate Macroeconomic Stars.  

For the historical real-time archives: https://github.com/zamansaeed/macrostars/

Citation:
To learn more about the data and the model, see:
Zaman, Saeed. 2024. "A Unified Framework to Estimate Macroeconomic Stars." Working Paper No. 21-23R2. Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland. https://doi.org/10.26509/frbc-wp-202123r2.

JEL Codes
C5, E4, E31, E24, O4

File Description:
Each vintage includes the posterior mean, 68% and 90% Credible Intervals for:

• U-star: long-run level of unemployment rate
• R-star: long-run real rate of interest
• Pi-star: long-run level of price inflation
• P-star: long-run level of productivity growth
• W-star: long-run level of nominal wage inflation
• G-star: growth rate of potential output
• Output Gap: cyclical assessment of the US economy 
• Persistence in price inflation (gap)
• Persistence in nominal wage inflation (gap)
• Slope of the price Phillips Curve
• Slope of the wage Phillips Curve
• Short-run passthrough from prices to wages
• Wedge: between W-star and (P-star + Pi-star)
• D: the catch all component in R-star equation
• Stochastic volatility price inflation gap
• Stochastic volatility nominal wage inflation gap
• Stochastic volatility labor productivity gap
• Stochastic volatility interest rate gap
• Stochastic volatility output gap
• Stochastic volatility UR gap

Disclaimer:
These data are updated by the authors and are not an official product of the Federal Reserve Bank of Cleveland.


Latest Estimates of Stars (and the output gap):
-- based on US data through 2025Q3, updated January 8th, 2026, after the release of labor productivity data

In bold is the (posterior) Mean estimate and in parentheses 68% coverage Interval:

U-star (long-run level of unemployment rate): 4.5%   (4.0% to 4.8%)

R-star (long-run real rate of interest): 1.4%   (0.8% to 2.1%)

Pi-star (long-run level of price inflation): 2.4%   (1.9% to 2.8%)

P-star (long-run level of productivity growth): 1.9%   (1.3% to 2.5%)

W-star (long-run level of nominal wage inflation): 3.7%   (3.3% to 4.1%)

G-star (growth rate of potential output): 2.9%  (2.6% to 3.2%)

Output Gap (cyclical assessment of the US economy): +0.6%   (-0.3% to +1.4%)

Next update: February 21, 2026.

Subject Terms:  View help for Subject Terms econometrics; modeling; forcasting