In this study we have addressed the relationship between the stock market, the measure of real economic activity (represented by the real GDP), the economic sentiment indicator, and real interest rate for the five European countries: Germany, France, Italy, the Netherlands, and the UK. We find...

By using the Economic Sentiment Indicator and Autoregressive Markov Switching models, this paper provides an effective tool to identify and characterize expectations of business cycle phases for Germany, Spain, the Euro Area, and the European Union. This information is useful for policy makers...

This paper analyses the leading characteristics of the Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) with respect to stock market returns for 11 New EU Member States. It proposes novel CCI weights by minimizing mean squared errors from regression forecasting equations, using CCI lags as regressors. With...

In this paper, we evaluate the forecasting ability of 115 indicators to predict the housing prices and rents in 71 German cities. Above all, we are interested in whether the local business confidence indicators can allow substantially improving the forecasts, given the local nature of the...

This paper investigates the relationship between real exchange rate changes and the German, French and UK automobile and mechanical engineering sector. In stylized models, exports decline whenever the domestic currency appreciates and vice versa. Strategic firm behavior, however, can obscure the...

This study investigates reactions to real exchange rate changes in the German, French and UK automobile and mechanical engineering sectors using monthly data from 1995 to 2010. Our findings indicate that EUR/USD appreciations hamper exports, but do not necessarily imply an aggravated business...

This study examines the forecasting power of confidence indicators for the Russian econ-omy. ARX models are fitted to the six confidence or composite indicators, which were then compared to a simple benchmark AR-model. The study used the output of the five main branches as the reference series....

The primary aim of this study is to analyze the impact of financial services and real sector confidence indexes on some macroeconomic and financial indicators such as industrial production, inflation, stock market index, foreign exchange rates and interest rates in Turkey for the period from May...