@techreport{Hufner2003What,
abstract = {This paper analyzes which factors are driving the ZEW Indicator of Economic Sentiment. Using the results of a poll among survey participants as well as Granger causality tests we identify three groups of influence factors: other sentiment indicators, financial variables and real economy data. In a second step these factors are used to estimate out-of-sample forecasts for the ZEW Indicator. We find that a simple model that includes German manufacturing order data, the German yield structure and the US Consumer Confidence indicator as explanatory variables is able to outperform a naive univariate benchmark model as well as the consensus forecast for the ZEW Indicator as published by news agencies.},
address = {Mannheim},
author = {Felix P. H\"{u}fner and David Lahl},
copyright = {http://www.econstor.eu/dspace/Nutzungsbedingungen},
keywords = {E32; E37; 330; leading indicators; Germany; zew; forecasting; Konjunkturindikator; Gesch\"{a}ftsklima; Konjunkturprognose; Prognoseverfahren; Deutschland},
language = {eng},
number = {03-48},
publisher = {Zentrum f\"{u}r Europ\"{a}ische Wirtschaftsforschung (ZEW)},
title = {What Determines the ZEW Indicator?},
type = {ZEW Discussion Papers},
url = {http://hdl.handle.net/10419/23983},
year = {2003}
}
