While there are various techniques of inflation forecasting in use, none of them has proved to deliver consistently more accurate forecasts than the others. That is why most users of inflation forecasts monitor a variety of inflation indicators and forecasts and check them for consistency. This...

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-onquarter GDP growth. The target series is...

This paper presents a new methodology for the quantification of qualitative survey data. Traditional conversion methods, such as the probability approach of Carlson and Parkin (1975) or the time-varying parameters model of Seitz (1988), require very restrictive assumptions concerning the...

Business tendency surveys are a popular tool for the timely assessment of the business cycle, used by economists and by the public. This article considers survey results in the manufacturing sector in more detail and looks into the question of, whether the analysis of branch results leads to an...

This paper offers an encompassing analysis of the ECB’s collateral criteria between 2001 and 2013. A comprehensive database of changes to collateral criteria is compiled and structured by asset classes. The main findings can be summarized in three stylized facts: (1) Since the outbreak of the...

In this paper we theoretically derive an international Rybczynski matrix. Its elements indicate the aggregate output change in a country when endowment with one or more factors in the same or another country is increased. This allows us to characterize theproduction structure in 11 countries of...

The objective of this paper is to investigate the trade potential of the fifteen old EU countries with the ten new members having joined on May 1st, 2004. Our focus lies not so much on the integration process already having taken place, but on the importance of institutional factors for trade....

The paper presents a detailed industry-level productivity analysis (52 industries) for the effects of industry structure on TFP growth for Germany from 1971 until 2000. The analysis builds on a theory by Acemoglu et al. (2003) relating industry structure and productivity growth of an industry....

Using data from the US commodity flow surveys, we show that the historical Union-Confederacy border lowers contemporaneous trade between US states by about 16 percentrelative to trade flows within the former alliances. Amongst one million placebos, thereis no other constellation of state...

A source of anxiety of policy makers and the public in general is the detrimental impactof globalization and immigration on unemployment. The transitory restrictions forworker migration after the EU enlargements of 2004 and 2007 exemplify the supposednegative effect of immigration on labor...