Business Cycles in the Euro Area Defined with Coincident Economic Indicators and Predicted with Leading Economic Indicators

Ataman Ozyildirim, Brian Schaitkin and Victor Zarnowitz
Additional contact information
Brian Schaitkin: The Conference Board
Victor Zarnowitz: The Conference Board

No 08-04, Economics Program Working Papers from The Conference Board, Economics Program

Abstract: Clusters of cyclical turning points in the coincident indicators help us identify and date Euro Area recessions and recoveries in the past several decades. In the U.S. and some other countries, composite indexes of coincident indicators (CEI) are used to date classical business cycle turning points; also indexes of leading indicators (LEI) are used to help in the difficult task of predicting these turning points. This paper reviews a selection of the available data for monthly and quarterly Euro Area coincident and leading indicators. From these data, we develop composite indexes using methods analogous to those tested in the U.S. CEI and LEI published by The Conference Board. We compare the resulting business cycle chronology with the existing alternatives and evaluate our selection of leading indicators in the context of how well they predict current economic activity and its major fluctuations for the Euro Area.

Keywords: Business Cycle; Indicators; Leading Index; Times Series; Forecasting (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C22 C52 C53 E32 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Pages: 45
Date: 2008-11
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-bec, nep-cba, nep-eec, nep-for and nep-mac
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (7)

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http://www.conference-board.org/economics/workingpapers.cfm?pdf=E-0031-08-WP First version, 2008 (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: Business cycles in the euro area defined with coincident economic indicators and predicted with leading economic indicators (2010)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:cnf:wpaper:0804

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