Financial conditions indexes are developed for the United States and euro area using a wide range of financial indicators and a dynamic factor model. The financial conditions indexes are shown to be useful for forecasting economic activity and have good revision properties

Most of the Euro-zone economic short-term indicators are computed through aggregation from Member States data. The seasonally adjusted figures can be calculated by seasonally adjusting the aggregate (direct approach) or aggregating the seasonally adjusted national data (indirect approach)....

In this paper, we investigate the impact of the adjustment for seasonal effects with different seasonal adjustment methods, the possible pre-treatment for calendar effects and the different order of aggregation and adjustment for the determination of the turning points of the European business...

In this paper we apply the Early Warning System methodology to ten Central and Eastern European Countries to find useful sets of indicators which could predict macroeconomic and financial imbalances. We argue that finding such indicators is crucial in the current monetary policy framework...