This study sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment surveys, and the expectations derived from them, are relevant to forecasting economic growth and stock returns, and whether they contain information that is orthogonal to macroeconomic and financial data. I examine 16...

This paper proposes a probabilistic model based on comovements and nonlinearities useful to assess the type of shock affecting each phase of the business cycle. By providing simultaneous inferences on the phases of real activity and inflation cycles, contractionary episodes are dated and...

In this paper we suggest the use of an internet job-search indicator (Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample comparison of many forecasting models. With respect to the previous literature we concentrate on the monthly...

This article tests the power of a novel indicator based on job search related web queries in predicting quarterly unemployment rates in short samples. Augmenting standard time series specifications with this indicator definitely improves out-of-sample forecasting performance at nearly all...

We suggest the use of an Internet job-search indicator (the Google Index, GI) as the best leading indicator to predict the US unemployment rate. We perform a deep out-of-sample forecasting comparison analyzing many models that adopt both our preferred leading indicator (GI), the more standard...

The main aim of the paper is an investigation whether consumer tendency survey (CTS) data can be useful for short-term forecasting of real private consumption expenditures in Poland. A consumer sentiment index and as well balances for individual questions (from consumer survey conducted by...

There have been several crises in the world economy since the end of the last century. The developing economies were ones that have suffered the most, considering the level of openness, the weak institutional framework, and the market vulnerability to unpredictable shocks. One of the instruments...

This study sheds new light on the question of whether or not sentiment surveys, and the expectations derived from them, are relevant to forecasting economic growth and stock returns, and whether they contain information that is orthogonal to macroeconomic and financial data. I examine 16...

By employing a parsimonious econometric approach, based on an ARIMA model, this study detects significant Islamic calendar effects on U.S. meat consumption. This surprising finding strengthens the assumption that the size of the Muslim community is considerably larger than assumed by U.S....