Computational methods to gauge investor sentiment from commonly used online data sources that rely on machine learning classifiers and lexicons have shown considerable promise, but suffer from measurement and classification errors. In our work, we develop a simple, direct and unambiguous...

This paper models industrial new orders across European Union (EU) Member States for various breakdowns. A common modelling framework exploits both soft data (business opinion surveys) and hard data (industrial turnover). The estimates show for about 200 cases that the model determinants...

We assess the usefulness of a large set of electronic payments data comprising debit and credit card transactions, as well as cheques that clear through the banking system, as potential indicators of current GDP growth. These variables capture a broad range of spending activity and are available...

"Big data" is becoming an increasingly important aspect of our daily lives as the digital sources of information and intelligence that it encompasses become more structured and more publicly available. These sources may enable the generation of new datasets providing high-frequency and timely...

This paper presents a detailed set of new, quantity-based indicators of financial integration in the euro area. The indicators are based on granular data from securities holdings statistics and help us disentangle the main drivers of the portfolio changes observed since the financial crisis....

In early 2020, the rapid spread of the coronavirus (COVID-19) quickly developed into a pandemic. This was followed by a sharp global economic downturn that was extraordinary in its speed, reach and scale. Within days of the first reported COVID-19 cases, the ECB daily Composite Indicator of...