Transcript P4.5

Tendency Surveys
Discussion
Russia
• Business tendency surveys (BTS) or business
climate surveys (BCS) with extensive coverage (by
economic activity, ownership structure, region)
• Adopts harmonized system, international
practices
• Confidence indicator for each sector anticipates
well the economic activity of the sector
• Extending to more services (as exemplified by
pilot services surveys)
Ukraine
• BTS well-established, conducted since 1997
and extended to non-financial services in 2010
• Leading and coincident (synthetic) indicators
compiled for each industry sector found to
correlate well with the sector’s level of
economic activity
• Assessment of cyclical synthetic indicators can
be related to Ifo segmentation approach
China
• Introduces business climate survey as well as
business climate index (BCI)
• BCI based on net balance weighted by primary
operating revenue and by value-added
• Where sampling design is pps, weighting is not
necessary
• BCI found to correlate well with GDP, and can
also be used to predict GDP
Hong Kong
• Successfully compiled composite leading index
(CLI)
• Uses GDP (instead of industrial production) as
reference
• Requires high frequency indicators of good
quality
• CLI includes one sentiment (tendency)-based
indicator (which is PMI)
Lessons from Country Experiences
• Large numbers of country papers reflect interest
in and need for timely and reliable forward
looking indicators
• Despite being based on simple, qualitative
information, data collected can be quantified
through construction of diffusion or net balance
indices
• Indices based on tendency surveys often have
leading properties and therefore included in
composite leading or cyclical indices