engleski

European integration in the light of business and consumer surveys

The process of European integration has emphasized the necessity of analyzing economic convergence between old and new European Union (EU) member states. Therefore this paper offers an exploratory endeavor of observing Business and Consumer Surveys (BCS) through a prism of economic convergence of new member countries. The main aim of this paper is to analyze whether BCS indicators in transition countries are of comparable quality to the ones in developed European countries. In contrast to other related BCS studies, this paper offers several extensions: i) this is the first empirical paper observing each specific BCS indicator and its sector-related macroeconomic variable at EU level ; ii) the analysis is based on an extensive dataset comprising all EU members ; iii) recent PVAR methodology is used. It is found that new member states’ indicators exhibit pronounced predictive properties and can be used as leading indicators of related macroeconomic variables for even four quarters ahead. In that sense, they are as efficient as the indicators in EU15 ; and the Joint Harmonised EU Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys is fully justified at its 50th jubilee.

Business and Consumer Surveys; Panel data; PVAR; European integration

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