Summary In this paper, an Unobserved Components Model is used to decompose the balances of Ifo Business survey data into the cyclical, the seasonal and the irregular components, as well as the working day effect. The empirical results show that the total cycle consists of three subcycles with...

Summary A reliable leading indicator should possess the following properties: (1) The movements in the indicator series should resemble those in the business cycle reference series. (2) The relation between the reference series and the indicator should be statistically significant and stable...

Over more than a decade, advertising rates per 1000 viewers, television consumption as well as the number of advertising spots have been steadily increasing. As a consequence, television has developed to the most important medium for the advertising industry and attracts a 40% share of German...

Over more than a decade, advertising rates per 1000 viewers, television consumption as well as the number of advertising spots have been steadily increasing. As a consequence, television has developed to the most important medium for the advertising industry and attracts a 40% share of German...

The current crisis of the media industry is a consequence of poor revenues from the advertising market. Actually, advertising revenues are contributing more than 60% to the total revenues of German mass media, thus dominating the economic performance of media firms. This empirical contribution...

Summary Interpreting Granger causality as economic causality implies that the underlying VAR model is a structural economic model. This is wrong in the case of simultaneity, and causal conclusions can be misleading. Nevertheless, the empirical relevance of this problem still needs to be...