This study develops a new monthly euro Area‐wide Leading Indicator (ALI) for the euro area business cycle. It derives the composite ALI by applying a deviation cycle methodology with a one‐sided band pass filter and choosing nine leading series. Our main findings are that i) the applied...

Das ifo Institut begleitet seit seiner Gründung im Jahr 1949 das aktuelle Wirtschaftsgeschehen durch seine regelmäßigen Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturprognosen. Im Jahr 2007 hat das ifo Institut zur methodischen Basis seiner Konjunkturforschung einen ersten Sammelband mit ausgewählten...

This paper proposes a new model-based method to obtain a coincident indicator for the business cycle. A dynamic factor model with trend components and a common cycle component is considered which can be estimated using standard maximum likelihood methods. The multivariate unobserved components...

Using OECD composite leading indicators (CLI), we assess empirically whether the ability of the country- specific CLIs to predict economic activity has diminished in recent years, e.g. due to rapid advances in globalisation. Overall, we find evidence that the CLI encompasses useful information...

The paper investigates a set of possible leading indicators for Euroland's business cycle using aggregated quarterly data. The theoretical plausibility, the behavior at business cycle turning points and the mean leads are analyzed. Furthermore, evidence from cross-correlations and...

The recent financial crisis has put the spotlight on the rapid rise in credit which preceded it. In this paper, we provide an empirical and theoretical analysis of the credit boom and the macroeconomic context in which it developed. We find that the boom was unusually long and associated with...

Bond yield and retail interest rate spreads are presumed to lead real activity on the basis of financial accelerator mechanisms, markup cyclicality or simply because they are forward-looking. Empirical results for Austria show that retail rate spreads outperform many other indicators in this...

We use a vector error correction model to study the long-term relationship between aggregate expected default frequency and the macroeconomic development, i.e. CPI, industry production and short-term interest rate. The model is used to forecast the median expected default frequency of the...