This paper analyses the contribution of survey data, in particular various sentiment indicators, to nowcasts of quarterly euro area GDP. It uses a genuine real-time dataset that is constructed from original press releases in order to transform the actual dataflow into an interpretable flow of...

In this paper we extract latent factors from a large cross-section of commodity prices, including fuel and non-fuel commodities. We decompose each commodity price series into a global (or common) component, block-specific components and a purely idiosyncratic shock. We find that the bulk of the...

The authors analyse 149 newly compiled monthly time series on financial market stress conditions in the euro area. With the aid of a factor model they find different sources of financial stress that are important for selecting and preparing the appropriate policy response. The existence of a...