We argue for the resurrection of an old idea: electricity use as an indicator of U.S. economic activity. Our analysis relies on associations–the 40-year correlation between growth rates in real GDP and electricity use can be as high as 89% –and intuition. Electricity use and economic...

Diese Dokumentation stellt einen Konjunkturindikator für einen Bereich vor, der von der amtlichen Statistik nur unzureichend erfaßt wird. Dieser Service Sentiment Indicator ermöglicht es, die konjunkturelle Situation im immer wichtiger werdenden Wirtschaftszweig unternehmensnahe...

This paper discusses the role of economic and monetary analysis in the monetary policy strategy of the European Central Bank (ECB). Both areas of analysis have evolved since the 2003 strategy review. Economic analysis has assigned an increasingly relevant role to the Eurosystem and ECB staff...

From 2013 up to the launch of the ECB's strategy review in January 2020, inflation in the euro area was low and over-predicted. This low inflation during the years 2013-19 can be attributed to a combination of interconnected factors. Cyclical developments account for a substantial share of the...

This dissertation focuses on describing and explaining business cycle dynamics. Motivated by the extraordinary strong economic downturn in 2008/2009, it emphasis the importance of modeling nonlinearities. This thesis should be regarded as a contribution to applied econometrics and can be...

Das vorliegende Handbuch soll einen Überblick über die Befragungen des ifo Instituts sowie die daraus resultierenden Konjunkturindikatoren und deren Verwendung für die Prognose volkswirtschaftlicher Kennzahlen liefern. Des Weiteren ist es als Interpretationshilfe für den Umgang mit den...

Timely and accurate assessment of current macroeconomic activity is crucial for policymakers and other economic agents. Nowcasting aims to forecast the current economic situation ahead of official data releases. We develop and apply a large Bayesian vector autoregressive (BVAR) model to nowcast...

In this paper we analyze features of the recent business cycle with a New Keynesian small open economy DSGE model with labour market frictions and wage rigidity. The model complements the existing analytical tools of the Bank of Finland by enabling detailed analysis of labour markets in a DSGE...

A key goal of politicians is to ensure a sustainable and stable economic growth path for their domestic economy. Economic forecasts are powerful tools for reducing uncertainty about future economic growth. While most of the research conducted to date has focused on nation states, this thesis by...

This study was prepared by Beate Schirwitz while she was working at the Ifo Institute’s Dresden Branch. It was completed in February 2012 and accepted as a doctoral thesis by the Faculty of Law, Management, and Economics at the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz in July 2012. It focuses on a...