We analyse the evolution of the business cycle in the new EU member countries, after a careful examination of the seasonal properties of the available series and the required modification of the cycle dating procedures. We then focus on the degree of cyclical concordance within the group of new...

Indicators of "trust", "confidence", "optimism" or "sentiment" among consumers and/or investors, are published continuously in the mass media. More importantly, these indices seem not only to reflect how the state of the real economy is perceived by private agents, but can also help predict the...

In this paper, we consider a threshold time series model in order to take into account certain stylized facts of the business cycle, such as asymmetries in the phases of the cycle. Our aim is to point out some thresholds under (over) which a signal of turning point could be given in real-time....

When a system of time series is seasonally adjusted, generally the accounting constraints originally linking the series are not fulfilled. To overcome this problem, we discuss an extension to a system of series linked by an accounting constraint of the classical univariate benchmarking procedure...

The extraction of a common signal from a group of time series is generally obtained using variables recorded with the same frequency or transformed to have the same frequency (monthly, quarterly, etc.). The econometric literature has not paid a great deal of attention to this topic. In this...

Insee's quarterly survey of investment in industry is a prime source of information concerning short-term evolutions in productive investment, making it possible to estimate these evolutions at an early stage and with considerable precision. However, the annual nature of the questions posed...

This paper aims to identify the Belgian business cycle and forecast GDP growth based on a large data base of short-term conjunctural indicators. The data base consists of 509 indicators containing information on surveys of Belgium and its neighbouring countries, macroeconomic variables and some...

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...

In this paper the forecasting performance of popular leading indicators for the German business cycle is investigated. Survey based indicators (ifo business climate, ZEW index of economic sentiment) and composite leading indicators (Handelsblatt, Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, Commerzbank) are...

This paper presents a new methodology for the quantification of qualitative survey data. Traditional conversion methods, such as the probability approach of Carlson and Parkin (1975) or the time-varying parameters model of Seitz (1988), require very restrictive assumptions concerning the...