The aim of this paper is to provide an interpretation of the measure of capacity utilisation provided by the European Union harmonised survey on the Italian manufacturing sector. In doing so, we evaluate its ability to correctly track cyclical turning points and its contribution in explaining consumer price index (CPI) inflation. The survey based measure results are a good co-incident indicator of business cycle, however it is generally outperformed by time series models in explaining inflation. We conclude that the standard “output gap” interpretation of the survey results is broadly confirmed by the data, however we cannot rule out at this stage that survey respondents may also consider the alternative “variable capacity utilisation” concept in answering the survey question.

Keywords: Capacity utilisation, co-integration, unobserved component models, VAR.

JEL Classification: E32, C22, E37