Mit einem Markov-Switching-Modell können die monatlichen Veränderungen des ifo Geschäftsklimas in Wahrscheinlichkeiten für die beiden konjunkturellen Regime »Expansion« bzw. «Kontraktion« umgesetzt werden. Diese Wahrscheinlichkeiten – abgebildet in der ifo Konjunkturampel – liefern...

This paper develops a new non-linear model to analyse the business cycle by exploiting the relationship between the asymmetrical behaviour of the cycle and leading indicators. The model proposed is an innovations form of the structural model underlying simple exponential smoothing that is...

The business survey indicator is one of the most valuable statistics that the Bank publishes every month. Its reputation is due to the reliability it has demonstrated over several decades in reflecting the pattern of economic activity in the country and in the euro area every month. The...

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...

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 close correlation between economic activity and freight performance is emphasized in numerous international studies. With regard to Austria, timely information on truck mileage has been available since 2004 when Austria introduced road pricing. In this study, truck road pricing data compiled...

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...

Business tendency surveys are a popular instrument for business cycle analysis. The survey results are used to calculate leading business cycle indicators. For Germany the Ifo Institute publishes the Ifo business climate, which consists of the results of two questions: one question about the...

A Hidden Markov Model (HMM) is used to classify an out of sample <p> observation vector into either of two regimes. This leads to a procedure for making probability forecasts for changes of regimes in a time series, i.e. for turning points. <p> Instead o maximizing a likelihood, the model is estimated...</p></p>

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...