Previous literature generally finds that greater fiscal decentralization is associated with faster economic growth, improved government performance and stronger constraints on the Leviathan behaviour of governments. Because economic growth critically depends on the presence of good government...

Previous literature generally finds that greater fiscal decentralization is associated with faster economic growth, improved government performance, and stronger constraints on the Leviathan behavior of governments. Because economic growth critically depends on the presence of good government...

A number of central banks publish their own business conditions survey based on non-random sampling methods. The results of these surveys influence monetary policy decisions and thus affect expectations in financial markets. To date, however, no one has computed the statistical accuracy of these...

In 1997, the Bank of Canada established regional offices to enhance communication and liaison activities across the country and to gather more effective regional input for the Bank's policy deliberations. Shortly thereafter, the regional offices began conducting the Business Outlook Survey...

This paper analyses revisions of Swiss current account data, taking into account the actual data revision process and the implied types of revisions. In addition we investigate whether the first release of current account data can be improved upon by the use of survey results as gathered by the...

This study utilizes the dynamic factor model of Giannone et al. (2008) in order to make now-/forecasts of GDP quarter-on-quarter growth rates in Switzerland. It also assesses the informational content of macroeconomic data releases for forecasting of the Swiss GDP. We find that the factor model...