Business and consumer uncertainty in the face of the pandemic: A sector analysis in European countries
Business and consumer uncertainty in the face of the pandemic: A sector analysis in European countries
Oscar Claveria * AQR-IREA, Department of Econometrics, Statistics and Applied Economics, University of Barcelona
Abstract.
This paper examines the evolution of business and consumer uncertainty amid the coronavirus pandemic in 32 European countries and the European Union (EU). Since uncertainty is not directly observable, we approximate it using the geometric discrepancy indicator of Claveria et al. (2019). This approach allows us quantifying the proportion of disagreement in business and consumer expectations of 32 countries. We have used information from all monthly forward-looking questions contained in
Joint Harmonised Programme of Business and Consumer Surveys conducted by the European Commission (EC): the industry survey, the service survey, the retail trade survey, the building survey and the consumer survey. First, we have calculated a discrepancy indicator for each of the 17 survey questions analysed, which allows us to approximate the proportion of uncertainty about different aspects of economic activity, both form the demand and the supply sides of the economy. We then use these indicators to calculate disagreement indices at the sector level. We graphic the evolution of the degree of uncertainty in the main economic sectors of the analysed economies up to June 2020. We observe marked differences, both across variables, sectors and countries since the inception of the COVID-19 crisis. Finally, by adding the sectoral indicators, an indicator of business uncertainty is calculated and compared with that of consumers. Again, we find substantial differences in the evolution of uncertainty between managers and consumers. This analysis seeks to offer a global overview of the degree of economic uncertainty in the midst of the coronavirus crisis at the sectoral level.
JEL Classification:
C14; C43; E20; E30; D84
Keywords:
COVID-19; economic uncertainty; economic activity; prices; employment; expectations; disagreement * Corresponding Author:
Oscar Claveria, University of Barcelona, 08034 Barcelona, Spain. Email: [email protected]
1. Introduction
The analysis of economic uncertainty gains renewed interest since the advent of the coronavirus pandemic and the subsequent economic disruption caused by the lockdown. There is ample evidence that uncertainty shocks have an effect on real activity (Baker et al. 2016; Bloom 2009; Henzel and Rengel 2017). Since economic uncertainty is not directly observable, several strategies have been designed to proxy it by: a) using the realized volatility in equity markets (Bekaert et al. 2013; Caggiano et al. 2014), b) estimating econometric unpredictability –understood as the conditional volatility of the unforecastable components of a broad set of economic variables (Jurado et al. 2015; Meinen and Roehe 2017)–, and c) computing survey-derived measures of expectations dispersion (Clements and Galvão 2017; Krüger and Nolte 2016). The ex-ante nature of this latter approach has generated a growing current in the literature based on this type of metrics (Dovern 2015; Mankiw et al. 2004; Meinen and Roehe 2017). Disagreement measures based on survey expectations make use of prospective information, as agents are asked about the expected future evolution of a wide range of variables. While most studies rely on quantitative macroeconomic expectations made by professional forecasters (Lahiri and Sheng 2010; Oinonen and Paloviita 2017), an alternative source of survey expectations are business and consumer tendency surveys (Claveria, 2020, 2021; Binding and Dibiasi 2017; Das et al. 2019; Shainoz and Cosar 2020). See Grimme et al. (2014) for the evaluation of a combination of different types of measures. The European Commission (EC) conducts monthly business and consumer tendency surveys in which respondents are asked whether they expect a set of economic variables to rise, fall or remain unchanged. We use all the forward-looking information coming from these surveys to proxy economic uncertainty in 32 European countries and the European Union (EU). To this end, we use Claveria et al.’s (2019) geometric indicator of discrepancy to compute the proportion of disagreement among firms and households. Given that survey expectations: (a) are based on the knowledge of respondents operating in the market, (b) provide detailed information about a wide range of economic variables, and (c) are available ahead of the publication of official quantitative data, the proposed approach to measure economic uncertainty allows us to give a quick snapshot of economic uncertainty amid the COVID-19 pandemic in real time.
The main aim of the study is to provide some insight regarding the recent evolution of uncertainty across economic sectors, economic agents and countries, both from the demand and the supply sides of the economy. The next section describes the data and describes the methodological approach to compute disagreement among agents. The graphical analysis is provided in Section 3.
2. Data and Methodology
We use firms’ and consumers’ qualitative expectations about a wide array of economic variables (see Table 1). Specifically, we use all forward-looking monthly raw data from all business and consumer surveys conducted by the EC. The sample period goes from 2016.M5 to 2020.M2 since we wanted to focus on the evolution of disagreement during the months previous to the coronavirus pandemic. This allowed us to include all the available information from all the surveys in all the 32 economies in which the surveys are now conducted. To our knowledge, this is the first study that includes Montenegro, North Macedonia, Albania, Serbia and Turkey, which were recently added to the survey.
Table 1.
Survey indicators
Industry survey
I5 –
Production expectations for the months ahead
I6 –
Selling price expectations over the next 3 months
I7 –
Employment expectations over the next 3 months
Service survey
S3 – Expectation of the demand over the next 3 months S5 – Expectations of the employment over the next 3 months
S6 –
Expectations of the prices over the next 3 months
Retail trade survey
R3 –
Orders expectations over the next 3 months
R4 –
Business activity expectations over the next 3 months R5 – Employment expectations over the next 3 months
R6 –
Prices expectations over the next 3 months
Building survey
B4 –
Employment expectations over the next 3 months
B5 –
Prices expectations over the next 3 months
Consumer survey
C2 –
Financial situation over next 12 months
C4 –
General economic situation over next 12 months
C6 –
Price trends over next 12 months
C7 –
Unemployment expectations over next 12 months
C9 –
Major purchases over next 12 months
In business surveys, respondents are asked about their expectations regarding firm-specific factors such as production, selling prices and employment and, they are faced with three options: “up”, “unchanged” and “down”. t P measures the share of respondents reporting an increase in the variable, t E no change, and t M a decrease. The most common way of presenting survey data is the balance, t B , which is computed as the subtraction between the two extreme categories: ttt MPB . Consumers, for their part, are asked about objective variables (e.g. how they think the general economic situation in the country will change over the next twelve months) and subjective variables (e.g. major purchases, savings, etc.). Consumers have three additional response categories: two at each end (“a lot better/much higher/sharp increase”, and “a lot worse/much lower/sharp decrease”), and a “don’t know” option. As a result, t PP measures the percentage of respondents reporting a sharp increase in the variable, t P a slight increase, t E no change, t M a slight fall, t MM a sharp fall and, t N don’t know. The most widespread measures of disagreement among survey respondents use the dispersion of balances as a proxy for uncertainty (Bachmann et al. 2013; Girardi and Reuter 2017; Mokinski et al. 2015). Bachmann et al. (2013) proposed an indicator of disagreement based on the square root of the variance of the balance: )MP(MPDISP ttttt (1) See Dibiasi and Iselin (2019) for a comparison of (1) to Theil’s disconformity coefficient (Theil 1955) and analysis of firms’ direct perception of investment uncertainty. By means of a simulation experiment, Claveria et al. (2019) showed that the omission of neutral responses in (1) resulted in an overestimation of the level of disagreement. As a result, the authors developed a disagreement metric that incorporated the information coming from all the reply options ( N ). Given that the sum of the shares adds to one, the authors computed an N -dimensional vector encompassing all shares, and projected it as a point on a simplex of N dimensions. For N , the simplex takes the form of an equilateral triangle, where the point corresponds to a unique convex combination of the three reply options for each period in time. See Claveria (2018) for an extension of the methodology for a larger number of reply options, and Claveria (2019) for an application of the methodology when N . Insomuch as all vertices are at the same distance to the centre of the simplex ( O ), the ratio of the distance of a point to the barycentre ( VO ) and the distance from the barycentre to the nearest vertex ( OP ) provides the proportion of agreement among respondents. Consequently, the indicator of discrepancy for a given period in time can be formalised as:
32 3131311 tttt
MEPD (2) This metric is bounded between zero and one, and conveys a geometric interpretation. The center of the simplex corresponds to the point of maximum disagreement, indicating that the answers are equidistributed among the three response categories. Conversely, each of the N vertexes corresponds to a point of minimum disagreement, where one category draws all the answers and t D reaches the value of zero. When comparing the evolution of the geometric measure of disagreement (2) to that of the standard deviation of the balance (1) in several European countries, Claveria (2020) obtained a high positive correlation between both measures of disagreement, and found that the main difference between both measures mainly lied in their average level and dispersion, being DISP more volatile and higher in most countries. In this study we apply expression (2) to measure discrepancy in all business and consumer surveys.
3. Graphical analysis
In this section we use qualitative survey data from the five independent tendency surveys conducted by the EC – the industry survey (INDU), the service survey (SERV), the retail trade survey (RETA), the construction survey (BUIL), and the consumer survey (CONS) – to compute the proportion of disagreement among respondents. By averaging the information coming from the different variables in each survey, we compute sector indicators of disagreement, which we in turn use to compute a business disagreement indicator that aggregates the information coming from the four sector indicators. We use all these indicators to examine the evolution of uncertainty, both from the demand (Fig.1) and the supply sides of the economy (Fig.2). Finally, in Table 2 we ranked the countries according to their average values of disagreement across the sample. See the Appendix for a detailed descriptive analysis of disagreement for all variables and surveys.
Fig. 1a.
Evolution of industry, service, retail trade and construction disagreement
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Denmark
Germany
Estonia
Ireland
Greece
Notes: The solid blue line represents the evolution of industry disagreement, the dashed black line the evolution of service disagreement, the dashed blue line the evolution of retail trade disagreement, and the dotted black line the evolution of construction disagreement . Fig. 1b.
Evolution of industry, service, retail trade and construction disagreement
Spain
France
Croatia
Italy
Cyprus
Latvia
Lithuania
Hungary
Notes: The solid blue line represents the evolution of industry disagreement, the dashed black line the evolution of service disagreement, the dashed blue line the evolution of retail trade disagreement, and the dotted black line the evolution of construction disagreement . Fig. 1c.
Evolution of industry, service, retail trade and construction disagreement
Malta
Netherlands
Austria
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovenia
Slovakia
Notes: The solid blue line represents the evolution of industry disagreement, the dashed black line the evolution of service disagreement, the dashed blue line the evolution of retail trade disagreement, and the dotted black line the evolution of construction disagreement . Fig. 1d.
Evolution of industry, service, retail trade and building disagreement
Finland
Sweden
United Kingdom
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Albania
Serbia
Turkey
Notes: The solid blue line represents the evolution of industry disagreement, the dashed black line the evolution of service disagreement, the dashed blue line the evolution of retail trade disagreement, and the dotted black line the evolution of construction disagreement . Fig. 1e.
Evolution of industry, service, retail trade and construction disagreement
Euro Area
European Union
Notes: The solid blue line represents the evolution of industry disagreement, the dashed black line the evolution of service disagreement, the dashed blue line the evolution of retail trade disagreement, and the dotted black line the evolution of construction disagreement . In Fig.1 we observe that the evolution of disagreement varies both across sectors and countries: If we focus on the last months of 2020, when the effects of the first wave of the coronavirus crisis where already palpable, we find different patterns regarding the evolution across sectors. In most cases, disagreement in the industry sector (BUIL) starts to decrease in April or May 2020, and in the construction sector even before that. In contrast, disagreement in the service sector and the retail trade sector continues to rise (France, Italy and Estonia). In Belgium, Germany, Greece, Spain, Croatia, Latvia, Poland or Slovenia retail trade (RETA) disagreement shows an increasing trend as of June 2020. In Finland, Sweden, Lithuania, the Netherlands, Hungary, Portugal, Montenegro, and North Macedonia it is service disagreement that maintains its growing trend. In other countries like Bulgaria, Czechia, Romania, Albania and Denmark, disagreement in all sectors co-evolves, decreasing after April or May 2020, as opposed to Cyprus and the United Kingdom where disagreement in all sectors rises. In Austria and Slovakia industry disagreement does not decrease and shows an increasing trend in June 2020. Cyprus, Greece and Turkey are the only countries in which disagreement in the building sector keeps rising in June 2020. In Fig.2 we compared the evolution of business disagreement vs. consumer disagreement in each economy. Fig. 2a.
Evolution of business disagreement vs. consumer disagreement
Belgium
Bulgaria
Czech Republic
Denmark
Germany
Estonia
Ireland
Greece
Notes: The solid black line represents the evolution of business disagreement in each country –aggregate disagreement for industry, service, retail trade and construction–, the dashed blue line the evolution of consumer disagreement in each country, and the dotted black line the evolution of aggregate business disagreement in the EU . Fig. 2b.
Evolution of business disagreement vs. consumer disagreement
Spain
France
Croatia
Italy
Cyprus
Latvia
Lithuania
Hungary
Notes: The solid black line represents the evolution of business disagreement in each country –aggregate disagreement for industry, service, retail trade and construction–, the dashed blue line the evolution of consumer disagreement in each country, and the dotted black line the evolution of aggregate business disagreement in the EU . Fig. 2c.
Evolution of business disagreement vs. consumer disagreement
Malta
Netherlands
Austria
Poland
Portugal
Romania
Slovenia
Slovakia
Notes: The solid black line represents the evolution of business disagreement in each country –aggregate disagreement for industry, service, retail trade and construction–, the dashed blue line the evolution of consumer disagreement in each country, and the dotted black line the evolution of aggregate business disagreement in the EU . Fig. 2d.
Evolution of business disagreement vs. consumer disagreement
Finland
Sweden
United Kingdom
Montenegro
North Macedonia
Albania
Serbia
Turkey
Notes: The solid black line represents the evolution of business disagreement in each country –aggregate disagreement for industry, service, retail trade and construction–, the dashed blue line the evolution of consumer disagreement in each country, and the dotted black line the evolution of aggregate business disagreement in the EU . Fig. 2e.
Evolution of business disagreement vs. consumer disagreement
Euro Area
European Union
Notes: The solid black line represents the evolution of business disagreement in each country –aggregate disagreement for industry, service, retail trade and construction–, the dashed blue line the evolution of consumer disagreement in each country, and the dotted black line the evolution of aggregate business disagreement in the EU . In Fig.2 we observe: Acute differences across countries in the interdependencies in time of business and consumer disagreement. In most countries, the correlation between business and consumer disagreement changes sign during the peak of the pandemic. In most countries, around February 2020 consumer disagreement started to decrease sharply, while business disagreement had been rising since mid and late 2019. In Denmark, the Netherlands and Sweden these opposite trends in disagreement are mild. In Germany, Croatia, Italy, the UK, Montenegro, North Macedonia and Turkey, the evolution between both types of disagreement during the first half of 2020 seems to positively correlate. We computed the average values of disagreement for each sector and ranked the countries in increasing order based on the obtained values. Results are presented in Table 2, where we observe that: The highest average values of disagreement in the industry and the retail trade sectors are obtained in the United Kingdom, and in the service and the building sectors in Turkey. In Sweden and Ireland we found high levels of disagreement. On the other extreme, Portugal, Romania and Poland are the countries in which we obtained the lowest average values of disagreement. An exception is consumer disagreement, where the lowest values where found for Germany. Table 2.
Ranking of countries according to the average degree of disagreement by sector
D_INDU D_SERV D_RETA D_BUIL D_BUSI D_CONS D_TOTAL Portugal Romania Portugal Italy Portugal Germany Portugal Romania Poland Denmark Cyprus Romania Hungary Poland Cyprus Latvia Austria Belgium Poland Poland Italy Bulgaria Bulgaria Lithuania Portugal Cyprus Sweden Bulgaria Italy Italy Poland Albania Bulgaria Italy Romania Poland Denmark Belgium Serbia Italy Bulgaria Hungary Montenegro Albania Malta Bulgaria Albania Lithuania Denmark Latvia Cyprus Czech Rep. Poland Belgium Austria Cyprus Spain Portugal Bulgaria Romania Denmark Portugal Germany Czech Rep. Czech Rep. Cyprus Czech Rep. Czech Rep. EU Albania Albania Hungary Netherlands Denmark Latvia
Euro Area
Latvia Netherlands Belgium Albania Macedonia Serbia Romania Czech Rep. Belgium Slovenia Romania Slovenia Austria Latvia Lithuania Serbia Macedonia Latvia Montenegro Slovenia Denmark Austria Greece Serbia Hungary Germany Netherlands France Netherlands Germany Lithuania France Spain Montenegro Turkey Malta EU Netherlands Slovenia Malta Lithuania Czech Rep. Belgium
Euro Area EU
Croatia Croatia Malta Montenegro Montenegro Austria France Italy EU Hungary Estonia Serbia Macedonia
Euro Area EU
Austria Macedonia Finland Greece Lithuania Croatia
Euro Area Euro Area
Spain Albania EU Hungary Finland Serbia Slovakia EU Croatia Slovenia Slovenia Montenegro Germany Hungary
Euro Area
Serbia
Euro Area
Denmark Greece Montenegro Netherlands Germany Slovakia Estonia Malta Austria Ireland France Croatia Slovenia France Croatia Spain Slovakia Lithuania France Netherlands Slovakia Estonia Estonia Spain UK Slovakia Belgium Croatia Slovakia Malta Macedonia Sweden Greece Cyprus Spain Ireland Germany Greece Estonia Finland Malta Finland Turkey Ireland Finland Latvia Estonia Spain Sweden Finland Slovakia Sweden Finland Ireland Greece Macedonia Sweden UK Estonia Ireland Sweden UK Turkey France Sweden Turkey Greece UK Ireland Ireland UK Turkey UK Turkey Turkey Macedonia UK Notes: D_INDU refers to the aggregate indicator for the industry, D_SERV for the service sector, D_RETA for the retail trade sector, D_BUIL for the building sector; D_BUSI refers to the business disagreement indicator and is obtained as the arithmetic mean of all aggregate sector indicators, and D_TOTAL averages the business and the consumer discrepancy indicators. Data for the building survey for the UK finishes in November 2019.
Finally, in Fig.3 we graphed for each survey, the evolution of disagreement across the different questions in each sector. We focused the analysis to the EU. Fig. 3.
Evolution of disagreement across questions and surveys in the EU
Industry
Service
Retail Trade
Building
Consumer
All surveys
Notes: Each line represents the evolution of disagreement for a specific survey indicator as noted in the legend . We observe that in most sectors, the evolution of disagreement across sectors follows a similar pattern since the start of the pandemic. The two main exceptions are consumers and the retail trade sector, where we observe negative correlations in the evolution of disagreement across questions. Specifically, we observe a great jump in the level of disagreement in the expectations of business activity in the retail trade sector (D_ R4 ) in April 2020. This evolution is similar to the disagreement in the expectations of orders in the retail trade sector (D_ R3 ), and opposed to that of prices and employment in the sector. Similarly, in Fig.3 we also observe that consumers’ perception of uncertainty, as captured by the metric of disagreement, strongly diverges across questions. While disagreement about the expected general economic situation (D_ C4 ) and the expected unemployment (D_ C7 ) experienced a major downturn at the beginning of the pandemic and then a sudden recovery in April 2020, disagreement regarding expectations about price trends (D_ C6 ) and major purchases (D_ C9 ) experienced the opposite evolution. When we compare the evolution of aggregate disagreement indicators for the respective sectors and consumers, we find inverse trajectories between firms and consumers. Claveria (2020) obtained similar results for the manufacturing firms and consumers. However, since May 2020 we observe a divergent evolution in industry and construction, which begins to decrease, while uncertainty in service and retail continues to increase. The obtained results provide a snapshot of economic uncertainty –proxied via indicators of disagreement in business and consumer surveys– in European countries in the midst of the pandemic. These findings give insight regarding the different evolution of uncertainty across economic sectors, variables, agents and countries. References
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Tables A1 to A4 contain the main descriptive statistics for all variables and surveys.
Table A1.a.
Descriptive analysis – Average disagreement D_ I5 D_ I6 D_ I7 D_ S3 D_ S5 D_ S6 Belgium 0,455 0,306 0,301 0,502 0,436 0,197 Bulgaria 0,445 0,135 0,316 0,432 0,306 0,128 Czech Rep. 0,403 0,267 0,372 0,434 0,451 0,166 Denmark 0,547 0,269 0,464 0,379 0,356 0,153 Germany 0,501 0,320 0,372 0,555 0,423 0,378 Estonia 0,655 0,315 0,382 0,616 0,379 0,339 Ireland 0,571 0,369 0,469 0,596 0,477 0,352 Greece 0,604 0,240 0,346 0,552 0,445 0,315 Spain 0,433 0,267 0,324 0,639 0,414 0,272 France 0,640 0,371 0,492 0,551 0,450 0,241 Croatia 0,618 0,212 0,519 0,615 0,418 0,225 Italy 0,427 0,193 0,286 0,411 0,323 0,151 Cyprus 0,611 0,135 0,088 0,592 0,246 0,166 Latvia 0,496 0,239 0,270 0,392 0,275 0,148 Lithuania 0,629 0,296 0,298 0,541 0,489 0,189 Hungary 0,549 0,298 0,410 0,513 0,301 0,285 Malta 0,558 0,328 0,412 0,574 0,476 0,297 Netherlands 0,470 0,232 0,352 0,558 0,441 0,226 Austria 0,487 0,327 0,400 0,475 0,508 0,333 Poland 0,464 0,233 0,275 0,332 0,272 0,172 Portugal 0,302 0,185 0,191 0,510 0,369 0,161 Romania 0,368 0,176 0,218 0,343 0,212 0,153 Slovenia 0,573 0,246 0,438 0,506 0,458 0,185 Slovakia 0,688 0,227 0,469 0,640 0,567 0,238 Finland 0,570 0,390 0,472 0,540 0,465 0,263 Sweden 0,580 0,387 0,527 0,575 0,669 0,359 United Kingdom 0,656 0,442 0,497 0,623 0,538 0,403 Montenegro 0,666 0,574 0,156 0,681 0,393 0,198 North Macedonia 0,621 0,209 0,387 0,661 0,307 0,186 Albania 0,593 0,145 0,303 0,568 0,249 0,089 Serbia 0,630 0,150 0,338 0,659 0,384 0,168 Turkey 0,629 0,482 0,314 0,704 0,513 0,482 Euro Area 0,524 0,301 0,381 0,553 0,425 0,277 European Union 0,520 0,296 0,380 0,424 0,271 0,412 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ I5 refers to disagreement in industry production expectations, D_ I6 in industry selling price expectations, and D_ I7 in industry employment; D_ S3 refers to disagreement in service demand expectations, D_ S5 in service employment expectations, and D_ S6 in service prices expectations. Table A1.b.
Descriptive analysis – Average disagreement D_ R3 D_ R4 D_ R5 D_ R6 D_ B4 D_ B5 Belgium 0,368 0,471 0,244 0,338 0,249 0,235 Bulgaria 0,490 0,600 0,255 0,176 0,404 0,164 Czech Rep. 0,366 0,468 0,383 0,259 0,359 0,275 Denmark 0,369 0,506 0,227 0,146 0,387 0,250 Germany 0,579 0,567 0,326 0,463 0,307 0,386 Estonia 0,744 0,756 0,331 0,498 0,479 0,462 Ireland 0,682 0,653 0,321 0,349 0,552 0,494 Greece 0,758 0,768 0,322 0,233 0,595 0,475 Spain 0,688 0,702 0,323 0,328 0,467 0,233 France 0,498 0,579 0,351 0,250 0,474 0,392 Croatia 0,631 0,615 0,335 0,228 0,447 0,273 Italy 0,578 0,640 0,368 0,226 0,298 0,143 Cyprus 0,625 0,667 0,034 0,243 0,198 0,250 Latvia 0,497 0,560 0,288 0,312 0,574 0,374 Lithuania 0,474 0,372 0,358 0,155 0,533 0,350 Hungary 0,524 0,547 0,209 0,393 0,423 0,424 Malta 0,407 0,509 0,272 0,245 0,393 0,317 Netherlands 0,497 0,627 0,291 0,181 0,407 0,448 Austria 0,363 0,385 0,209 0,345 0,437 0,316 Poland 0,408 0,463 0,227 0,296 0,284 0,288 Portugal 0,244 0,248 0,142 0,113 0,323 0,188 Romania 0,490 0,517 0,289 0,330 0,326 0,280 Slovenia 0,459 0,595 0,439 0,263 0,465 0,215 Slovakia 0,618 0,605 0,454 0,327 0,429 0,384 Finland 0,551 0,699 0,407 0,471 0,549 0,401 Sweden 0,687 0,617 0,463 0,441 0,512 0,428 United Kingdom 0,681 0,697 0,558 0,572 0,419 0,478 Montenegro 0,705 0,682 0,330 0,251 0,484 0,200 North Macedonia 0,753 0,752 0,240 0,310 0,385 0,277 Albania 0,606 0,655 0,138 0,197 0,393 0,161 Serbia 0,681 0,688 0,275 0,224 0,440 0,124 Turkey 0,692 0,751 0,363 0,574 0,677 0,608 Euro Area 0,566 0,631 0,333 0,325 0,406 0,350 European Union 0,558 0,625 0,329 0,325 0,405 0,348 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ R3 refers to disagreement in retail trade order expectations, D_ R4 in retail trade business activity expectations, D_ R5 in retail trade employment expectations, and D_ R6 in retail trade prices expectations; D_ B4 refers to disagreement in in construction employment expectations, and D_ B5 in construction prices expectations. Table A1.c.
Descriptive analysis – Average disagreement D_ C2 D_ C4 D_ C6 D_ C7 D_ C9 D_CONS Belgium 0,438 0,813 0,694 0,836 0,792 0,715 Bulgaria 0,641 0,658 0,585 0,625 0,697 0,641 Czech Rep. 0,615 0,781 0,476 0,722 0,852 0,689 Denmark 0,651 0,762 0,588 0,745 0,544 0,658 Germany 0,372 0,579 0,678 0,688 0,630 0,589 Estonia 0,557 0,714 0,508 0,644 0,619 0,609 Ireland 0,644 0,730 0,756 0,793 0,849 0,754 Greece 0,543 0,538 0,778 0,606 0,537 0,600 Spain 0,587 0,815 0,792 0,813 0,630 0,727 France 0,576 0,743 0,610 0,795 0,561 0,657 Croatia 0,579 0,738 0,792 0,865 0,572 0,709 Italy 0,329 0,720 0,613 0,719 0,562 0,589 Cyprus 0,506 0,683 0,803 0,762 0,725 0,696 Latvia 0,559 0,687 0,735 0,645 0,668 0,659 Lithuania 0,541 0,735 0,515 0,748 0,656 0,639 Hungary 0,535 0,616 0,572 0,610 0,480 0,563 Malta 0,528 0,589 0,858 0,590 0,667 0,646 Netherlands 0,657 0,706 0,512 0,685 0,676 0,647 Austria 0,541 0,757 0,478 0,760 0,746 0,657 Poland 0,483 0,666 0,762 0,529 0,507 0,589 Portugal 0,461 0,700 0,663 0,758 0,614 0,639 Romania 0,622 0,693 0,672 0,621 0,696 0,661 Slovenia 0,645 0,791 0,505 0,832 0,702 0,695 Slovakia 0,500 0,638 0,628 0,733 0,684 0,636 Finland 0,588 0,687 0,593 0,756 0,729 0,671 Sweden 0,500 0,616 0,665 0,764 0,645 0,638 United Kingdom 0,860 0,673 0,551 0,733 0,774 0,718 Montenegro 0,552 0,684 0,723 0,774 0,595 0,667 North Macedonia 0,796 0,833 0,801 0,898 0,739 0,814 Albania 0,619 0,744 0,698 0,823 0,529 0,683 Serbia 0,731 0,637 0,751 0,735 0,592 0,689 Turkey 0,740 0,828 0,783 0,572 0,443 0,673 Euro Area 0,488 0,740 0,703 0,799 0,639 0,674 European Union 0,500 0,734 0,704 0,786 0,639 0,673 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ C2 refers to disagreement in consumers’ financial situation expectations, D_ C4 in general economic situation expectations, D_ C6 in price trends expectations; D_ C7 in unemployment expectations, and D_ C9 in consumers’ major purchases expectations; D_CONS is computed as the arithmetic mean of the five indicators for consumers. Table A2.a.
Descriptive analysis – Minimum disagreement D_ I5 D_ I6 D_ I7 D_ S3 D_ S5 D_ S6 Belgium 0,331 0,163 0,187 0,318 0,294 0,055 Bulgaria 0,380 0,072 0,190 0,316 0,178 0,057 Czech Rep. 0,233 0,144 0,277 0,339 0,209 0,060 Denmark 0,351 0,145 0,250 0,290 0,242 0,093 Germany 0,363 0,181 0,270 0,426 0,349 0,296 Estonia 0,508 0,160 0,255 0,274 0,274 0,205 Ireland 0,437 0,161 0,169 0,408 0,320 0,219 Greece 0,469 0,139 0,161 0,382 0,274 0,116 Spain 0,322 0,143 0,225 0,442 0,287 0,187 France 0,389 0,237 0,429 0,446 0,345 0,166 Croatia 0,522 0,101 0,344 0,321 0,277 0,132 Italy 0,372 0,134 0,237 0,288 0,184 0,094 Cyprus 0,218 0,032 0,000 0,099 0,042 0,074 Latvia 0,434 0,171 0,204 0,286 0,182 0,087 Lithuania 0,487 0,204 0,187 0,378 0,353 0,115 Hungary 0,424 0,150 0,243 0,138 0,096 0,064 Malta 0,188 0,069 0,132 0,413 0,254 0,108 Netherlands 0,388 0,123 0,259 0,414 0,367 0,108 Austria 0,389 0,153 0,308 0,334 0,417 0,181 Poland 0,396 0,145 0,207 0,278 0,208 0,109 Portugal 0,235 0,115 0,151 0,395 0,299 0,087 Romania 0,281 0,061 0,150 0,241 0,137 0,065 Slovenia 0,457 0,170 0,341 0,383 0,348 0,120 Slovakia 0,362 0,075 0,285 0,300 0,352 0,060 Finland 0,428 0,269 0,360 0,440 0,312 0,120 Sweden 0,469 0,209 0,374 0,411 0,524 0,228 United Kingdom 0,351 0,215 0,368 0,149 0,345 0,256 Montenegro 0,420 0,034 0,129 0,414 0,248 0,078 North Macedonia 0,355 0,123 0,210 0,575 0,122 0,079 Albania 0,597 0,470 0,060 0,436 0,100 0,016 Serbia 0,521 0,087 0,192 0,543 0,191 0,088 Turkey 0,492 0,347 0,236 0,435 0,414 0,328 Euro Area 0,467 0,222 0,334 0,488 0,383 0,207 European Union 0,472 0,220 0,337 0,482 0,387 0,201 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ I5 refers to disagreement in industry production expectations, D_ I6 in industry selling price expectations, and D_ I7 in industry employment; D_ S3 refers to disagreement in service demand expectations, D_ S5 in service employment expectations, and D_ S6 in service prices expectations. Table A2.b.
Descriptive analysis – Minimum disagreement D_ R3 D_ R4 D_ R5 D_ R6 D_ B4 D_ B5 Belgium 0,225 0,297 0,133 0,149 0,177 0,154 Bulgaria 0,294 0,465 0,124 0,100 0,276 0,094 Czech Rep. 0,196 0,298 0,269 0,097 0,191 0,147 Denmark 0,222 0,349 0,126 0,093 0,296 0,169 Germany 0,492 0,418 0,264 0,342 0,209 0,252 Estonia 0,564 0,499 0,179 0,225 0,358 0,296 Ireland 0,490 0,430 0,159 0,190 0,398 0,417 Greece 0,540 0,548 0,065 0,029 0,160 0,216 Spain 0,477 0,459 0,243 0,211 0,124 0,052 France 0,385 0,447 0,264 0,166 0,368 0,282 Croatia 0,392 0,392 0,210 0,119 0,337 0,105 Italy 0,401 0,498 0,256 0,165 0,229 0,081 Cyprus 0,417 0,427 0,006 0,058 0,037 0,105 Latvia 0,207 0,451 0,199 0,222 0,443 0,282 Lithuania 0,318 0,256 0,208 0,080 0,353 0,222 Hungary 0,054 0,049 0,069 0,107 0,305 0,239 Malta 0,083 0,111 0,038 0,016 0,133 0,097 Netherlands 0,355 0,495 0,195 0,096 0,255 0,195 Austria 0,239 0,210 0,079 0,176 0,249 0,157 Poland 0,320 0,376 0,171 0,180 0,196 0,177 Portugal 0,168 0,183 0,093 0,073 0,181 0,120 Romania 0,250 0,325 0,141 0,068 0,207 0,124 Slovenia 0,264 0,441 0,188 0,079 0,283 0,080 Slovakia 0,434 0,424 0,311 0,135 0,300 0,089 Finland 0,368 0,405 0,180 0,308 0,395 0,180 Sweden 0,523 0,498 0,329 0,235 0,311 0,279 United Kingdom 0,273 0,277 0,196 0,373 0,186 0,184 Montenegro 0,555 0,433 0,225 0,149 0,320 0,086 North Macedonia 0,145 0,203 0,396 0,271 0,228 0,324 Albania 0,477 0,456 0,061 0,111 0,254 0,060 Serbia 0,544 0,466 0,156 0,127 0,237 0,049 Turkey 0,428 0,420 0,274 0,431 0,566 0,432 Euro Area 0,519 0,494 0,292 0,260 0,316 0,249 European Union 0,514 0,504 0,297 0,254 0,322 0,258 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ R3 refers to disagreement in retail trade order expectations, D_ R4 in retail trade business activity expectations, D_ R5 in retail trade employment expectations, and D_ R6 in retail trade prices expectations; D_ B4 refers to disagreement in in construction employment expectations, and D_ B5 in construction prices expectations. Table A2.c.
Descriptive analysis – Minimum disagreement D_ C2 D_ C4 D_ C6 D_ C7 D_ C9 D_CONS Belgium 0,344 0,410 0,532 0,189 0,693 0,506 Bulgaria 0,563 0,337 0,455 0,177 0,541 0,464 Czech Rep. 0,532 0,447 0,349 0,285 0,761 0,553 Denmark 0,597 0,637 0,463 0,421 0,459 0,597 Germany 0,236 0,367 0,441 0,221 0,588 0,485 Estonia 0,361 0,306 0,247 0,250 0,360 0,458 Ireland 0,591 0,283 0,614 0,382 0,628 0,559 Greece 0,328 0,227 0,559 0,187 0,371 0,384 Spain 0,529 0,287 0,666 0,216 0,535 0,521 France 0,493 0,274 0,450 0,259 0,488 0,468 Croatia 0,470 0,346 0,649 0,390 0,507 0,557 Italy 0,260 0,491 0,502 0,277 0,507 0,510 Cyprus 0,407 0,214 0,621 0,230 0,488 0,459 Latvia 0,423 0,364 0,557 0,277 0,574 0,579 Lithuania 0,482 0,391 0,304 0,226 0,582 0,487 Hungary 0,422 0,267 0,299 0,153 0,335 0,393 Malta 0,359 0,382 0,705 0,257 0,409 0,524 Netherlands 0,558 0,244 0,192 0,186 0,621 0,469 Austria 0,470 0,379 0,356 0,368 0,673 0,537 Poland 0,361 0,252 0,262 0,159 0,368 0,424 Portugal 0,394 0,177 0,523 0,123 0,487 0,384 Romania 0,504 0,432 0,504 0,333 0,527 0,517 Slovenia 0,558 0,218 0,397 0,172 0,545 0,394 Slovakia 0,437 0,266 0,424 0,168 0,616 0,409 Finland 0,538 0,565 0,417 0,269 0,637 0,555 Sweden 0,422 0,496 0,563 0,270 0,473 0,566 United Kingdom 0,781 0,378 0,430 0,365 0,677 0,569 Montenegro 0,380 0,537 0,577 0,555 0,519 0,575 North Macedonia 0,608 0,580 0,661 0,641 0,475 0,656 Albania 0,543 0,678 0,561 0,519 0,409 0,597 Serbia 0,628 0,506 0,536 0,506 0,394 0,613 Turkey 0,651 0,624 0,680 0,421 0,380 0,595 Euro Area 0,435 0,331 0,601 0,268 0,620 0,500 European Union 0,451 0,318 0,598 0,250 0,622 0,499 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ C2 refers to disagreement in consumers’ financial situation expectations, D_ C4 in general economic situation expectations, D_ C6 in price trends expectations; D_ C7 in unemployment expectations, and D_ C9 in consumers’ major purchases expectations; D_CONS is computed as the arithmetic mean of the five indicators for consumers. Table A3.a.
Descriptive analysis – Maximum disagreement D_ I5 D_ I6 D_ I7 D_ S3 D_ S5 D_ S6 Belgium 0,732 0,469 0,583 0,914 0,560 0,530 Bulgaria 0,636 0,248 0,466 0,710 0,486 0,269 Czech Rep. 0,778 0,365 0,542 0,820 0,628 0,457 Denmark 0,793 0,465 0,676 0,653 0,540 0,387 Germany 0,809 0,536 0,460 0,829 0,493 0,497 Estonia 0,794 0,505 0,585 0,734 0,564 0,542 Ireland 0,848 0,610 0,682 0,882 0,696 0,519 Greece 0,950 0,383 0,636 0,816 0,654 0,548 Spain 0,767 0,449 0,542 0,855 0,579 0,455 France 0,878 0,514 0,567 0,860 0,776 0,396 Croatia 0,944 0,323 0,615 0,873 0,553 0,327 Italy 0,757 0,287 0,329 0,848 0,429 0,257 Cyprus 0,812 0,274 0,202 0,851 0,514 0,412 Latvia 0,675 0,341 0,446 0,650 0,514 0,317 Lithuania 0,883 0,411 0,438 0,849 0,621 0,389 Hungary 0,774 0,540 0,575 0,779 0,455 0,457 Malta 0,797 0,680 0,712 0,853 0,706 0,496 Netherlands 0,652 0,416 0,456 0,815 0,500 0,489 Austria 0,864 0,529 0,505 0,918 0,605 0,546 Poland 0,688 0,427 0,505 0,615 0,439 0,445 Portugal 0,768 0,482 0,449 0,796 0,498 0,358 Romania 0,741 0,324 0,496 0,628 0,487 0,378 Slovenia 0,968 0,392 0,599 0,850 0,555 0,271 Slovakia 0,980 0,531 0,636 0,885 0,878 0,512 Finland 0,766 0,525 0,652 0,713 0,662 0,522 Sweden 0,765 0,577 0,692 0,777 0,783 0,515 United Kingdom 0,849 0,851 0,644 0,949 0,794 0,574 Montenegro 0,959 0,285 0,466 0,968 0,574 0,401 North Macedonia 0,811 0,328 0,488 0,834 0,413 0,257 Albania 0,718 0,276 0,482 0,876 0,425 0,218 Serbia 0,780 0,205 0,396 0,814 0,483 0,300 Turkey 0,885 0,655 0,410 0,883 0,653 0,649 Euro Area 0,824 0,444 0,468 0,853 0,536 0,403 European Union 0,804 0,427 0,482 0,837 0,537 0,391 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ I5 refers to disagreement in industry production expectations, D_ I6 in industry selling price expectations, and D_ I7 in industry employment; D_ S3 refers to disagreement in service demand expectations, D_ S5 in service employment expectations, and D_ S6 in service prices expectations. Table A3.b.
Descriptive analysis – Maximum disagreement D_ R3 D_ R4 D_ R5 D_ R6 D_ B4 D_ B5 Belgium 0,762 0,774 0,493 0,602 0,411 0,377 Bulgaria 0,733 0,769 0,516 0,432 0,557 0,290 Czech Rep. 0,705 0,886 0,521 0,442 0,516 0,486 Denmark 0,610 0,700 0,520 0,314 0,564 0,495 Germany 0,753 0,785 0,493 0,606 0,420 0,522 Estonia 0,925 0,961 0,540 0,640 0,655 0,635 Ireland 0,933 0,867 0,628 0,606 0,658 0,575 Greece 0,935 0,957 0,642 0,520 0,860 0,640 Spain 0,972 0,918 0,549 0,478 0,765 0,541 France 0,667 0,888 0,480 0,430 0,563 0,558 Croatia 0,838 0,910 0,493 0,356 0,550 0,398 Italy 0,946 0,901 0,454 0,373 0,359 0,236 Cyprus 0,801 0,827 0,130 0,475 0,412 0,452 Latvia 0,749 0,819 0,573 0,461 0,821 0,502 Lithuania 0,759 0,666 0,537 0,446 0,704 0,478 Hungary 0,686 0,794 0,319 0,557 0,614 0,555 Malta 0,689 0,716 0,592 0,897 0,547 0,619 Netherlands 0,687 0,786 0,476 0,484 0,538 0,534 Austria 0,584 0,691 0,463 0,591 0,608 0,492 Poland 0,643 0,706 0,480 0,623 0,506 0,581 Portugal 0,587 0,597 0,318 0,263 0,465 0,298 Romania 0,932 0,866 0,618 0,534 0,542 0,491 Slovenia 0,791 0,915 0,755 0,611 0,578 0,352 Slovakia 0,944 0,855 0,592 0,549 0,582 0,532 Finland 0,922 0,896 0,656 0,678 0,731 0,627 Sweden 0,902 0,865 0,713 0,808 0,630 0,583 United Kingdom 0,897 0,930 0,786 0,770 0,554 0,629 Montenegro 0,999 0,933 0,465 0,440 0,619 0,320 North Macedonia 0,929 0,928 0,358 0,442 0,543 0,407 Albania 0,809 0,789 0,286 0,360 0,637 0,397 Serbia 0,863 0,894 0,423 0,360 0,545 0,250 Turkey 0,883 0,942 0,491 0,779 0,794 0,800 Euro Area 0,802 0,911 0,504 0,424 0,470 0,426 European Union 0,782 0,902 0,504 0,441 0,463 0,442 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ R3 refers to disagreement in retail trade order expectations, D_ R4 in retail trade business activity expectations, D_ R5 in retail trade employment expectations, and D_ R6 in retail trade prices expectations; D_ B4 refers to disagreement in in construction employment expectations, and D_ B5 in construction prices expectations. Table A3.c.
Descriptive analysis – Maximum disagreement D_ C2 D_ C4 D_ C6 D_ C7 D_ C9 D_CONS Belgium 0,536 0,965 0,788 0,981 0,854 0,791 Bulgaria 0,920 0,733 0,802 0,745 0,761 0,700 Czech Rep. 0,760 0,886 0,655 0,929 0,922 0,757 Denmark 0,749 0,874 0,714 0,902 0,629 0,737 Germany 0,690 0,689 0,819 0,796 0,662 0,616 Estonia 0,675 0,919 0,980 0,743 0,773 0,761 Ireland 0,798 0,982 0,874 0,938 0,938 0,836 Greece 0,746 0,934 0,938 0,966 0,667 0,815 Spain 0,704 0,965 0,884 0,985 0,707 0,806 France 0,684 0,918 0,768 0,930 0,626 0,738 Croatia 0,737 0,811 0,958 0,980 0,660 0,770 Italy 0,525 0,965 0,763 0,898 0,610 0,679 Cyprus 0,639 0,856 0,951 0,923 0,833 0,798 Latvia 0,715 0,809 0,973 0,759 0,817 0,722 Lithuania 0,651 0,816 0,813 0,853 0,752 0,700 Hungary 0,831 0,760 0,806 0,705 0,680 0,625 Malta 0,679 0,911 0,996 0,871 0,976 0,805 Netherlands 0,760 0,886 0,770 0,947 0,763 0,783 Austria 0,687 0,866 0,653 0,957 0,824 0,707 Poland 0,703 0,865 0,971 0,674 0,874 0,670 Portugal 0,610 0,840 0,714 0,935 0,662 0,708 Romania 0,763 0,781 0,953 0,683 0,783 0,719 Slovenia 0,713 0,896 0,667 0,980 0,749 0,779 Slovakia 0,608 0,761 0,914 0,920 0,744 0,776 Finland 0,664 0,851 0,759 0,907 0,791 0,761 Sweden 0,565 0,916 0,748 0,936 0,702 0,675 United Kingdom 0,926 0,902 0,843 0,880 0,854 0,820 Montenegro 0,923 0,846 0,856 0,934 0,693 0,760 North Macedonia 0,912 0,977 0,910 0,982 0,868 0,870 Albania 0,691 0,851 0,827 0,948 0,581 0,763 Serbia 0,870 0,860 0,975 0,979 0,713 0,773 Turkey 0,810 0,989 0,923 0,745 0,607 0,751 Euro Area 0,626 0,800 0,792 0,893 0,670 0,713 European Union 0,644 0,790 0,802 0,869 0,664 0,710 Notes: D_ denotes discrepancy. D_ C2 refers to disagreement in consumers’ financial situation expectations, D_ C4 in general economic situation expectations, D_ C6 in price trends expectations; D_ C7 in unemployment expectations, and D_ C9 in consumers’ major purchases expectations; D_CONS is computed as the arithmetic mean of the five indicators for consumers. Table A4.
Descriptive analysis – Average disagreement