The traditional consumption function based on the life cycle permanent income hypothesis (LC-PIH) considers that consumer spending is based on households’ expectations of their future income. However, in short-term forecasting, the traditional economic determinants of consumption do not...

We search through all possible consumer confidence indicators in order to find the single indicator that has the highest correlation with private consumption growth. Moreover, we contrast this indicator to the Consumer Confidence Indicator used by the European Commission, and some alternative...

We construct a consumer sentiment index for the U.S. using the popularity trends of selected Google searches. The final index consists of four components and is highly correlated with the Index of Consumer Sentiment from the University of Michigan and the Consumer Confidence Index from the...

The following analysis, based on error correction models, suggests that consumer confidence, together with traditional macroeconomic variables, contains a forecasting and explicative power on consumption. By including consumer confidence in a consumption function, consumer confidence releases a...

The Consumer Confidence Index of APOYO Consultoría (INDICCA) is computed based on the responses to ten questions of a monthly survey in the city of Lima which aim to reflect the consumers’ spending intentions. We evaluate some sub-components of INDICCA in terms of their predictive and...

This paper provides new evidence on the relations between the stock market and consumer behavior in Canada. It differentiates between two channels of stock price transmission: a direct wealth channel that operates through changes in wealth and an indirect consumer confidence channel that affects...

The impact of government spending on private consumption is extensively studied in the literature. However, the main theme of these studies is the possible crowding-in or crowding-out impact of government spending on consumer spending. This paper attempts to introduce a new variable to this...

Survey-based indicators such as the consumer confidence are widely seen as leading indicators for economic activity, especially for the future path of private consumption. Although they receive high attention in the media, their forecasting power appears to be very limited. Therefore, this paper...

Out of 11 questions included in the EU harmonised consumer questionnaire, it is possible to construct 2 047 different consumer confidence indicators. We search through all these indicators in order to find the single indicator that has the highest correlation with private consumption growth....

The consumer confidence index is a highly observed indicator among short-term analysts and news reporters and it is generally considered to convey some useful information about the short-term evolution of consumer expenditure. Notwithstanding this, its usefulness in forecasting aggregate...