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Sentiment Indicators in tracking economic trends Introduction Gyorgy Gyomai OECD Statistics Directorate Scheveningen, December 2009 1 Outline Why do we rely on sentiment (tendency) indicators? Data collection and dissemination by the OECD Standardization of the results Harmonization of the surveys and International co-operation in the field 2 Why collect sentiment indicators? Good standalone indicators: – Timely – Often leading – Barely revised Can fit in macro-models and composite leading indicators Model and understand expectation formation 3 Data collection Countries covered: – OECD countries except Iceland – Enhanced engagement economies (Brazil, China, South Africa + India, Indonesia and the Russian Federation targeted) – Preparation have been done for 5 OECD accession countries: Chile, Estonia, Israel, the Russian Federation and Slovenia. Sectors and subjects: – Manufacturing, Construction, Retail Trade, Services and Consumers – Orders, Production (Activity), Stocks, Employment, Prices, Capacity utilization – Qualitative questions (tendency, future tendency, level assessment ) 4 Dissemination OECD data are updated and released in the first full week of each month and refer to T-1 Part of the monthly Main Economic Indicators (MEI) publication Available in OECD.Stat (OECD’s data warehouse): http://dotstat.oecd.org/wbos/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=MEI_BTS_COS 5 Standardized Business and Consumer Confidence Indicators Goal: – ensure comparability across countries – comparability with indicators of the OECD composite leading indicator system – providing zone aggregates Source: – based on a headline composite indicators, or – proxies if the composite is not available Manipulations: – frequency conversion (if needed Q->M) – smoothing (by MCD) – rescaling 6 Survey harmonization Challenges: – the surveying organization varies from country to country: private institutes, chambers of commerce and industries, universities, central banks, statistics offices – risks and costs for changing established surveys, costs for setting up new surveys Current state (OECD report, CIRET-metadata page) Methodology documents (see below the thematic OECD websites) Regular fora for discussing sentiment indicators: – biennial EC-OECD Workshop on Business and Consumer Opinion Surveys (stronger practitioner aspect) – biennial CIRET conferences (research focus) 7 Survey harmonization History: – 1991-1998 Harmonization work for transition economies. Joint OECD/EC/Eurostat efforts to develop and harmonize surveys in Central and Eastern Europe and the New Independent States – Co-operation with UN ESCAP in the Asia-Pacific region – Co-operation with UN ECLAC in Latin America OECD websites: Business Cycle Analysis portal: http://stats.oecd.org/mei/default.asp?rev=2 International Development Work and Co-ordination portal: http://www.oecd.org/document/22/0,2340,en_2649_34249_321592 54_1_1_1_1,00.html 8