Efficient Aggregation of Panel Qualitative Survey Data

James Mitchell, Richard J. Smith and Martin Weale ()

No 11/53, Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester

Abstract: Qualitative business survey data are used widely to provide indicators of economic activity ahead of the publication of official data. Traditional indicators exploit only aggregate survey information, namely the proportions of respondents who report “up” and “down”. This paper examines disaggregate or firm-level survey responses. It considers how the responses of the individual firms should be quantified and combined if the aim is to produce an early indication of official output data. Having linked firms’ categorical responses to official data using ordered discrete choice models, the paper proposes a statistically efficient means of combining the disparate estimates of aggregate output growth which can be constructed from the responses of individual firms. An application to firm-level survey data from the Confederation of British Industry shows that the proposed indicator can provide early estimates of output growth more accurately than traditional indicators.

Keywords: Survey Data; Indicators; Quantification; Forecasting; Forecast Combination (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: C35 C53 C80 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2011-12
New Economics Papers: this item is included in nep-dcm, nep-ecm, nep-for and nep-hme
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations:

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.le.ac.uk/economics/research/RePEc/lec/leecon/dp11-53.pdf (application/pdf)

Related works:
Journal Article: EFFICIENT AGGREGATION OF PANEL QUALITATIVE SURVEY DATA (2013)
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:lec:leecon:11/53

Ordering information: This working paper can be ordered from
https://www2.le.ac.u ... -1/discussion-papers

Access Statistics for this paper

More papers in Discussion Papers in Economics from Division of Economics, School of Business, University of Leicester School of Business, University of Leicester, University Road. Leicester. LE1 7RH. UK Provider-Homepage: https://le.ac.uk/school-of-business. Contact information at EDIRC.
Bibliographic data for series maintained by Abbie Sleath ().