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

Aggregate financial conditions indices (FCIs) are constructed to fulfil two aims: (i) The FCIs should resemble non-model-based composite indices in that their composition is adequately invariant for concatenation during regular updates; (ii) the concatenated FCIs should outperform financial...

The Ifo Business Climate in trade and industry, the well-known representative of the monthly business surveys of the Ifo Institute, is an accepted leading indicator for the development of the German economy. The Business Climate is composed of the current assessment of business situtation and...