Business cycle indicators are used to assess the economic situation of countries or regions. They are closely watched by the public, but are not easy to interpret. Does a current movement of the indicator signal a turning point or not? With the help of Markov Switching Models movements of...

The Ifo Business Climate is the most important indicator for the business cycle in Germany. In 1993 the connection between the two components of the business climate - business situation and business expectations - was graphically portrayed by Ifo in a 4-quadrant scheme: the Ifo Business Cycle...

There are various parametric models to analyse the volatility in time series of financial market data. For maximum likelihood estimation these parametric methods require the assumption of a known conditional distribution. In this paper we examine the conditional distribution of daily DAX returns...

The Ifo Business Climate is the most important indicator for the business cycle in Germany. In 1993 the connection between the two components of the business climate - business situation and business expectations - was graphically portrayed by Ifo in a 4-quadrant scheme: the Ifo Business Cycle...

Business cycle indicators are used to assess the economic situation of countries or regions. They are closely watched by the public, but are not easy to interpret. Does a current movement of the indicator signal a turning point or not? With the help of Markov Switching Models movements of...

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...

Business tendency surveys are a commonly accepted instrument for the assessment of the current business cycle course. Most of these surveys rely on qualitative questions about the current situation of the firms and about heir expectations for the next months. This paper analyzes whether...

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...