Investment in equipment and machinery is a very important component of GDP. In this paper we examine whether data from business tendency sur- veys are useful for a timely assessment of current investment behavior. In addition we investigate whether the survey results are helpful for forecasting...

Different studies provide surprisingly a large variety of controversial conclusions about the forecasting power of an indicator, even when it is supposed to forecast the same time series. In this study we aim to provide a thorough overview of linear forecasting techniques and draw conclusions...

Results from business tendency surveys are often used to construct leading indicators. The indicators are then, for example, employed to forecast GDP growth. In this article more detailed results of business tendency surveys are used to forecast quarter-on-quarter GDP growth. The target series...

This paper compares the German Gross Domestic Product between 1991 and 2008 with the Ifo business indicators. Because GDP is published quarterly but the Ifo indicators monthly, the most analyses compare these variables by merging the indicators to quarterly data. In this paper an alternative way...