The paper compares different procedures to convert in ordinary quantitative indicators the results of qualitative tendency surveys. The main result is that different procedures tend to produce quantitative indicators with a very similar dynamics. A new quantification method based on the...

Typically, firms change their size through a row of discrete leaps over time. Sunk costs, regulatory, financial and organizational constraints, talent distribution and other factors may explain this fact. However, firms tend to grow or fall discontinuously even if those inertial factors were...

Typically, firms change their size through a row of discrete leaps over time. A very basic model allowing for discontinuous growth can be based on a couple of assumptions: (a) in the short run, the firm’s equipment and organization provide the maximum profit only for a given production level,...

The concept of inflation perceived by consumers came in the recent debate on inflation since it may affect consumer behaviour even if the perception was completely wrong. A misperception of inflation occurs particularly when households tend to label incorrectly inflation what really is a...

The Banks&Businesses Regional Observatory on Economy and Finance (OBI) and the University of Tirana carried on the first qualitative survey on Albanian enterprises between July and September 2008. The main advantages of qualitative surveys are that they are able to catch the “business...

In general, rational economic agents are not in the position to wait for the statistical agencies disseminate the final results of the relevant surveys before making a decision, and have to make use of some model based predictions, even when agents are not assumedly forward looking. Thus, from...

Quality adjustment of price indexes affects the analysis of many sensitive economic issues, such as real growth, productivity, international competitiveness, real wages, per-capita consumption and poverty, other than inflation. Hedonic methods are often recommended and increasingly used in the...

Despite the very strong shocks of the last 15 years, the same paradigm continued to inspire economic policies, which envisages: a single long-term path of development, substantially insensitive to short-term policies; and an economic system composed of almost homogeneous representative agents...

Inflation is currently low and falling in the OECD area. A side effect of these facts is that they made harder the task of price index compilers. First of all, researchers and analysts are moving their attention from aggregate price dynamics to price differentials (among products, markets,...

During 2002, the discrepancy between the official inflation rate and that perceived by consumers picked up to an all time record in the Eurozone. A measure of this misperception is provided by the results of the monthly qualitative consumer surveys carried out by the European Commission. Of...