International interdependence of business cycles in the manufacturing industry: The use of leading indicators for forecasting and analysis

Abstract

This article introduces new leading indicators for fifteen industrialized countries which enable the business cycle in manufacturing to be forecast fairly reliably between 4 and 6 months ahead. These indicators are based on an improved variant of the NBER method, yielding a composite leading indicator characterized by less erratic movements and clear turning points.

Which survey indicators are useful for monitoring consumption? Evidence from European countries

“…Given the forward-looking nature of monetary policy strategies, leading indicators play an important role in monitoring relevant economic developments. Presently, the majority of the available indicators of economic activity relate to the manufacturing sector (Zarnowitz, 1992;Berk and Bikker, 1995). However, developments in this sector need not always be perfectly indicative of macroeconomic developments.…”

Pre-recession pattern of six economic indicators in the USA

“…A central problem of macroeconomic forecasting has been the prediction of the onset and end of recessions using time series data on economic indicators; recent contributions include Diebold and Rudebusch (1989), Fair (1993), Stock andWatson (1989, 1993), Sims (1993), Berk and Bikker (1995), and Mostaghimi and Rezayat (1996). At least four features of this problem make this particularly dicult.…”

Analysis of the financial practices of high and low performing firms over periods of peaks and troughs of the restaurant industry cycle

“…As Bernhardt (1993) explains, it is the process through which managers can evaluate the factors within the environment critical for business success. One of the most striking aspects of the business cycle is that it is a phenomenon which, sooner or later, is reflected in similar patterns in almost every macro-economic variable, thus illustrating their interdependence (Berk and Bikker, 1995). Such interdependence is not restricted to national macro-economic variables.…”