The answers to qualitative questions put to economic operators can be integrated in standard macro-economic analysis by using a "quantification" procedure chosen among the probabilistic approach, the regression methods or the latent factor approach. The first one is the most commonly used. It is...

The Banks&Businesses Regional Observatory on Economy and Finance (OBI) and the University of Tirana carried on the first qualitative survey on Albanian enterprises between July and September 2008. The main advantages of qualitative surveys are that they are able to catch the “business...

The paper compares different procedures to convert in ordinary quantitative indicators the results of qualitative tendency surveys. The main result is that different procedures tend to produce quantitative indicators with a very similar dynamics. A new quantification method based on the...

Inflation is currently low and falling in the OECD area. A side effect of these facts is that they made harder the task of price index compilers. First of all, researchers and analysts are moving their attention from aggregate price dynamics to price differentials (among products, markets,...

In general, rational economic agents trade off the cost of waiting for the statistical agencies disseminate the final results of the relevant surveys before making a decision, on the one hand, and of making use of some model based predictions. Thus, from the viewpoint of agents, predictions and...

Typically, firms change their size through a row of discrete leaps over time. A very basic model allowing for discontinuous growth can be based on a couple of assumptions: (a) in the short run, the firm’s equipment and organization provide the maximum profit only for a given production level,...

Typically, firms change their size through a row of discrete leaps over time. Sunk costs, regulatory, financial and organizational constraints, talent distribution and other factors may explain this fact. However, firms tend to grow or fall discontinuously even if those inertial factors were...

Economic agents are aware to incur in a loss basing their decisions on their own extrapolations instead of sound statistical data, but the loss could be smaller than the one related to waiting for the dissemination of final data. A broad guidance in deciding when statistical offices should...

Typically, firms change their size through a row of discrete leaps over time. A very basic model allowing for discontinuous growth can be based on a couple of assumptions: (a) in the short run, the firm’s equipment and organization provide the maximum profit only for a given production level,...