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Business Cycles and the Role of Confidence: Evidence from Europe

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Bob McNabb
Karl Taylor ()

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Abstract

Using an under-utilised dataset on consumer and business confidence indicators across the UK, France, Italy and the Netherlands, this paper considers the extent to which such indicators are linked to GDP and the business cycle. We adopt, cross correlation descriptive statistics, Granger causality tests, variance decomposition, and forecast probit tests to investigate the properties of the data. In general consumer and business confidence indicators are leading indicators and pro-cyclical. There is some evidence of causality between the indicators and GDP and confidence indicators would appear to have good predictive power of cycle turning points in relation to other leading indicators.

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Paper provided by Department of Economics, University of Leicester in its series Discussion Papers in Economics with number 02/3.

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Date of creation: Feb 2002
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Handle: RePEc:lec:leecon:02/3

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  18. Millard, Stephen & Scott, Andrew & Sensier, Marianne, 1997. "The Labour Market over the Business Cycle: Can Theory Fit the Facts?," Oxford Review of Economic Policy, Oxford University Press, vol. 13(3), pages 70-92, Autumn.
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  19. Sarah Brown & Gaia Garino & Karl Taylor & Stephen Wheatley Price, 2005. "Debt and Financial Expectations: An Individual- and Household-Level Analysis," Economic Inquiry, Oxford University Press, vol. 43(1), pages 100-120, January. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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  20. Arturo Estrella & Frederic S. Mishkin, 1999. "Predicting U.S. Recessions: Financial Variables as Leading Indicators," NBER Working Papers 5379, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc. [Downloadable!] (restricted)
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Cited by:
(explanations, Please report citation or reference errors to , or , if you are the registered author of the cited work, log in to your RePEc Author Service profile, click on "citations" and make appropriate adjustments.)

  1. Lux, Thomas, 2008. "Rational forecasts or social opinion dynamics? : identification of interaction effects in a business climate survey," Economics Working Papers 2008,07, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  2. Thomas Lux, 2008. "Rational Forecasts or Social Opinion Dynamics? Identification of Interaction Effects in a Business Climate Survey," Kiel Working Papers 1424, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
  3. Gomes, Orlando, 2007. "On the stability of endogenous growth models: an evaluation of the agents’ response to output fluctuations," MPRA Paper 2891, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
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  4. Mark J. Holmes & Brian Silverstone, 2007. "Business Confidence and Cyclical Turning Points: A Markov-Switching Approach," Working Papers in Economics 07/19, University of Waikato, Department of Economics. [Downloadable!]
  5. Gomes, Orlando, 2007. "Consumer confidence, endogenous growth and endogenous cycles," MPRA Paper 2883, University Library of Munich, Germany. [Downloadable!]
  6. Jaba Ghonghadze & Thomas Lux, 2009. "Modeling the Dynamics of EU Economic Sentiment Indicators: An Interaction-Based Approach," Kiel Working Papers 1487, Kiel Institute for the World Economy. [Downloadable!]
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