This paper examines whether data from business tendency surveys are useful for forecasting the macro economy (GDP, unemployment, price and wage inflation, interest rates, exchange-rate changes etc.) in the short run. The starting point is a so-called dynamic factor model (DFM), which is used...

This Economic Brief looks at past evidence as to what extent donors' economic cycles have an effect on their aid budgets. It generally finds only a weak correlation of economic growth and aid of OECD donors between 1971 and 2008, and aid was reduced in only about half of all episodes of deep or...

This brief reviews the main economic developments since transition in the three Baltic economies and highlights challenges for the future. Although the three economies went, in an almost synchronous fashion, through similar stages of catching up and financial convergence-driven booms and busts,...