This paper, using 40 years of monthly industrial production data, examines the relationship between the business cycles of the 12 euro area countries. Since estimates of the business cycle have been found to be sensitive to how the cycle is ...

Business cycle indexes are used to get a timely and frequent description of the state of the economy and its likely development in the near future. This paper discusses two methods for constructing business cycle indexes, the traditional NBER method ...

This paper examines the consequences of using so-called "real-time" data for business cycle analysis in Germany. Based on a novel data set covering quarterly real output data from 1980 to 2002 real-time output gaps using some popular filter methods ...

This paper studies the revisions of the expenditure approach variables of the National Accounts, the most popular tool in macroeconomic forecasting and analysis. Preliminary figures get most attention. But how reliable are they? Generally ...

Since January 2003 the Eurosystem conducts a regular quarterly bank lending survey for the euro area. It is the first regular survey that gathers information on the distinct supply-side determinants and demand-side determinants of the development in ...