The purpose of the present paper is to study how households form inflation expectations. Using a novel survey-base dataset of Italian households' opinions of inflation we investigate two separate, but related, types of behavior: 'inattentiveness' and 'anchoring'. The present analysis extends the...

A factor based approach is often used to build Composite Indicators (CI) from qualitative data stemming from Business and Consumers Survey (BCS). Bruno and Malgarini (2002) and Gayer and Genet (2006) have used factor analysis to synthesize the information contained in the balances of the various...

The paper looks at an often debated issue – the decline observed in business cycle volatility – using qualitative data derived from Business Tendency Surveys. It concentrates on the manufacturing sector, providing evidence that volatility slowdown is attributable to a break in the Data...

This paper describes the new ISAE manufacturing survey design and its recent reengineering process. Three important goals have been reached: First, the underlying industrial structure for the aggregation of survey results is now based on the up-to-date NACE Rev. 1.1 classification (at the...

Self-reported life satisfaction (SRS) in Italy has started to decline well before the current crisis. This paper explores the relationship between SRS and quality of life in Italy, using the ISAE data-base on households. SRS was surveyed on 2000 individuals in May 2008, November 2008 and April...

In recent years a number of studies have investigated stylised facts concerning the most important US macroeconomic time series(Stock and Watson, 2002; McConnell and Perez-Quiros, 2000; Blanchard and Simon, 2001; Arias, Hansen, and Ohanian, 2006); One of the main results of the analysis concerns a marked...

The aim of the paper is to evaluate the relationship between consumers’ climate and consumption, looking – respectively – at income-based indicators of confidence and at consumption expenditures disaggregated by durability. We find that confidence significantly contributes explaining...

The Joint harmonized Manufacturing survey for Italy, carried out by the Institute of Studies and Economic Analysis (ISAE, formerly ISCO), has a long history: it began on a quarterly basis in 1959, becoming monthly in 1962. The survey was then broadly modified in several occasions; in particular,...

The Joint harmonized EU Investment survey, carried out for Italy by the Institute for Studies and Economic Analysis (ISAE), provides quantitative information about investment plans and the structure of investment and qualitative data on the factors influencing firm’ behavior. As shown in the...