The purpose of the present paper is to study how households form inflation expectations. Using a novel survey-base dataset of Italian households’ opinions of inflation we investigate two separate, but related, types of behavior: ‘inattentiveness’ and ‘anchoring’. The present analysis...

The aim of this paper is to provide an interpretation of the measure of capacity utilisation provided by the European Union harmonised survey on the Italian manufacturing sector. In doing so, we evaluate its ability to correctly track cyclical turning points and its contribution in explaining...

The aim of the paper is to assess the role of the Italian Consumer Sentiment Index (CSI) as an autonomous driving force of consumption decisions. We test for the presence of “rule of thumb” consumers as originally proposed by Cambell and Mankiw (1991), using sentiment measures distinguished...

The paper aims at investigating on the credit conditions experienced by Italian firms during the recent business cycle. In doing so, we use a novel dataset on firms’ opinions derived from the ISTAT Business Confidence surveys. The dataset allows us to add to existing literature in three...

The long and sustained expansion of the nineties has generated, especially in the US, widespread rumours about the “death of the cycle”. Nevertheless, towards the end of the last decade, it became clear that fluctuations of economic activity were far from being extinct. This has contributed...

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the relationship between consumption and consumers’climate, controlling for the effect of different time periods and of socio-political factors. We find that confidence significantly contributes in explaining consumption behaviour when the cyclical situation...

The flexicurity approach claims a positive effect of flexible labour on firm performance, also through an increased ability to innovate. Critics consider it a deregulation of the labour market, decreasing investment in human capital and innovation. We contribute to this broad debate providing an...

The long and sustained expansion of the nineties has generated, especially in the US, widespread rumours about the “death of the cycle”. Nevertheless, towards the end of the last decade, it became clear that fluctuations of economic activity were far from being extinct. This has contributed...

Since February 2003 ISAE collects quantitative inflation opinions, within its monthly survey on Italian consumers. Data confirms the severe overestimation of inflation already emerging from a companion study on Italian consumers (Del Giovane, Fabiani and Sabbatini, 2009); moreover, quantitative...

A factor based approach is often used to build Composite Indicators (CI) from qualitative data stemming from Business and Consumers Survey (BCS). Bruno and Malgarini (2002) and Gayer and Genet (2006) have used factor analysis to synthesize the information contained in the balances of the various...