I The Finger on the Pulse of the Economy -- How it Started -- On the Special Nature of the Surveys -- Construction and Development of the Surveys -- Lines of Scientific Development -- Worldwide Diffusion -- Summary -- Notes -- II The Business Situation: On the Meaning of an Undetermined Survey...

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...