Qualitative surveys enjoy huge popularity among business cycle analysts and research institutes since they provide fast information on the stance of the economy. However, in order to derive quantitative statements researchers have to rely on assumptions about the relation between quantitative...

The concept of cointegration (see e.g., Engle and Granger, 1987; Johansen, 1988) has extensively been used to model equilibrium relationships (see e.g., Johansen and Juselius, 1990; Ericsson, 1998). The links between economic and econometric concepts are now well understood and they have become part of...