| dc.description.abstract | Monitoring the current status of the economy is quite relevant for policy making but also for the decisions of private agents, consumers and firms. Since it is difficult to identify a single variable that provides a good measure of current economic conditions, it can be preferable to consider a combination of several coincident indicators, i.e., a composite coincident index (CCI). In this paper, we review the main statistical techniques for the construction of CCIs, propose a new pooling-based method, and apply the alternative techniques for constructing CCIs for the largest European countries in the euro area and for the euro area as a whole. We find that different statistical techniques yield comparable CCIs, so that it is possible to reach a consensus on the status of the economy. | |