The main objective of this study is two-fold. First, we aim to detect the underlying existing periodicities in business and consumer survey data. With this objective, we conduct a spectral analysis of all survey indicators. Second, we aim to provide researchers with a filter especially designed...

In this study we construct quarterly consumer confidence indicators of unemployment for the euro area using as input the consumer expectations for sixteen socio-demographic groups elicited from the Joint Harmonised EU Consumer Survey. First, we use symbolic regressions to link unemployment rates...

Business and consumer surveys are the main source of agents' expectations. In this study we use survey expectations about a wide range of economic variables to forecast GDP growth. We propose an empirical approach to derive mathematical functional forms that link survey-based expectations to...

In this study we use agents' expectations about the state of the economy to generate indicators of economic activity in twenty-six European countries grouped in five regions (Western, Eastern, and Southern Europe, and Baltic and Scandinavian countries). We apply a data-driven procedure based on...

This study presents a multiple-input multiple-output (MIMO) approach for multi-step-ahead time series prediction with a Gaussian process regression (GPR) model. We assess the forecasting performance of the GPR model with respect to several neural network architectures. The MIMO setting allows...

By means of Self-Organizing Maps we cluster fourteen European countries according to the most suitable way to model their agents' expectations. Using the financial crisis of 2008 as a benchmark, we distinguish between those countries that show a progressive anticipation of the crisis and those...

This study attempts to assess the forecasting accuracy of Support Vector Regression (SVR) with regard to other Artificial Intelligence techniques based on statistical learning. We use two different neural networks and three SVR models that differ by the type of kernel used. We focus on...