Diffusion indexes based on dynamic factors have recently been advocated by Stock and Watson (1998), and further used to perform forecasting tests by the same authors on US data. This technique is explored for the euro area using a multi-country data set and a broad array of variables, in order...

This paper applies the "diffusion indices" approach proposed by Stock and Watson [1998] to the euro area. Following their methodology a set of factors are extracted from a balanced and unbalanced panel dataset comprising nominal variables for 11 countries of the euro area. The estimated factors...