This paper analyzes which factors are driving the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment. Using the results of a poll among survey participants as well as Granger causality tests we identify three groups of influence factors: other sentiment indicators, financial variables and real economy data. In...

Das ifo Institut begleitet seit seiner Gründung im Jahr 1949 das aktuelle Wirtschaftsgeschehen durch seine regelmäßigen Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturprognosen. Daneben hat das ifo Institut aber immer auch Aufsätze zur methodischen Basis seiner Konjunkturforschung veröffentlicht. Die...

Das ifo Institut begleitet seit seiner Gründung im Jahr 1949 das aktuelle Wirtschaftsgeschehen durch seine regelmäßigen Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturprognosen. Daneben hat das ifo Institut aber immer auch Aufsätze zur methodischen Basis seiner Konjunkturforschung veröffentlicht. Die...

Das ifo Institut begleitet seit seiner Gründung im Jahr 1949 das aktuelle Wirtschaftsgeschehen durch seine regelmäßigen Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturprognosen. Daneben hat das ifo Institut aber immer auch Aufsätze zur methodischen Basis seiner Konjunkturforschung veröffentlicht. Die...

This paper estimates a simple univariate model of expectation or opinion formation in continuous time adapting a 'canonical' stochastic model of collective opinion dynamics (Weidlich and Haag, 1983; Lux, 1995, 2007). This framework is applied to a selected data set on survey-based expectations from...

A reliable leading indicator should possess the following properties: (1) The movements in the indicator series should resemble those in the business cycle reference series. (2) The relation between the reference series and the indicator should be statistically significant and stable over time....

In this paper we assess the information content of seven widely cited early indicators for the euro area with respect to forecasting area-wide industrial production. To this end, we use various tests that are designed to compare competing forecast models. In addition to the standard...

In this paper we analyze the power of various indicators to predict growth rates of aggregate production using real-time data. In addition, we assess their ability to predict turning points of the economy. We consider four groups of indicators: survey data, composite indicators, real economic...

With the increasing importance of the service-providing sectors, information from these sectors has become essential to the understanding of contemporary business cycles. This paper explores the usefulness of the transportation services output index (TSI) as an additional coincident indicator in...

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...