| EXPANSION OF DATA FOR BUSINESS AND
CONSUMER OPINION SURVEYS |
The OECD has recently undertaken a project to significantly expand the range
of data series it provides on business and consumer opinion (tendency) surveys.
This is in response to the increasing use of these data for monitoring and
forecasting business cycles, and in econometric models to predict key macro
economic variables (e.g. GDP, Industrial Production). An important aspect of
these data is their timeliness, with data for the most recent month being made
available in all Main Economic Indicators (MEI) online and CD-ROM products e.g.
February data will be available in the March release.
Historically, data on business tendencies has been restricted to the
manufacturing sector. However, a key aspect of development work by the OECD in
this area has been to identify a set of indicators to summarise business
tendencies in the Construction, Retail Trade and Other Services industries. Data
on these sectors will be published for the first time in the March 2004 issue of
all MEI online and CD-ROM products for European Union countries, Czech Republic,
Hungary, Poland, Slovak Republic, United States, Japan Korea, Switzerland and
Indonesia. In addition, data series for consumer opinion surveys will be
presented for Australia and Korea for the first time.
The table below provides the target list of series the OECD aims to disseminate
in all MEI online and CD-ROM products from March 2004 for business and consumer
opinion surveys. Coverage of these series will vary slightly amongst countries
depending on the availability of data. The exact list of new series to be
published for each country and their series codes (including series for China
which were first introduced in December 2003) can be accessed in the Excel file
NEW BTS-CTS.xls
(new data for Business and Consumer Opinion Surveys). This link also contains series which the OECD intends to
stop publishing from March 2004 (indicated by an ‘S’ in the first column of the
EXCEL file).
For further information on the inclusion of these new series or the planned
removal of existing series, please contact Ronny Nilsson at
ronny.nilsson@oecd.org.
Target list of series for Business and Consumer Opinions
Manufacturing industry
Manufacturing confidence indicator
Business situation: present
Business situation: future
Production: tendency
Production: future tendency
Orders inflow or demand: tendency
Order books: level
Export order books: level
Finished goods stocks: level
Raw material stocks: present situation
Rate of capacity utilisation
Employment: future tendency
Selling prices: future tendency
Construction
Construction confidence indicator
Business (activity) situation: present
Business (activity) situation: future
Demand/Orders inflow: future tendency
Order books: level
Employment: future tendency
Selling prices: future tendency
Retail Trade
Retail confidence indicator
Business (activity) situation: present
Business (activity) situation: future
Volume of stocks: level
Employment: future tendency
Order intentions or demand
Other Services
Service confidence indicator
Business (activity) situation: present
Business (activity) situation: future
Demand evolution: tendency
Demand evolution: future tendency
Employment: tendency
Employment: future tendency
Consumer opinions
Consumer confidence indicator
Expected inflation
Expected economic situation
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