The forecasting profession, especially when producing forecasts intended to support economic policy, does not currently enjoy a good reputation. Complaints are sometimes voiced about its lack of scientific discipline, which in turn implies that the ...

A large majority of summary indicators derived from the individual responses to qualitative Business Tendency Surveys (which are mostly three-modality questions) result from standard aggregation and quantification methods. This is typically the case ...

This paper aims at the production of a chronology for the EU15 business cycle by comparing parametric and non-parametric procedures on monthly and quarterly data as well in a combined approach. The main innovation is the joint use of the monthly ...

A spectral analysis of the Australian time series for the investment and savings ratios on quarterly data over the period from September 1959 to December 2005 reveals that the major cyclical components of the savings and investment ratios cohere ...

The report summarizes the present survey practices in Europe and some countries on other continents. The study was launched on behalf of the European Commission and the OECD in April-July 2006. The aim of the project was to identify the state of ...