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Switzerland KOF Economic Barometer December: Unchanged

In December 2016, the KOF Economic Barometer stayed at its previous month’s reading of 102.2. The currently observable sideward trend, at a level slightly above the long-term average, indicates that the Swiss economy should grow at rates close to its long-term average in the near future.

In December 2016, the KOF Economic Barometer, with a value of 102.2 being unchanged compared to the previous month, continued to be slightly above its long-term average. Positive impulses to the unchanged total balance came from the manufacturing industry, weighed up by negative signals from the construction sector. The remaining areas that can be identified within the Barometer (hotel and catering industry, financial sector and indicators relating private consumption as well as to the international economy) have practically not changed as compared to November.

Within the manufacturing industry, the slightly improved total outlook was primarily driven by the textile and wood-processing industries as well as by the category “others”. These positive tendencies were to some degree counteracted by deteriorating outlooks in the food-processing, electrical and paper industries.

The slightly improved sentiment in manufacturing as a whole is primarily a reflection of the more positive assessment of incoming orders, followed by the employment outlook. The assessment of the general business situation, on the other hand, has become more sceptical.

KOF Economic Barometer December 2016

(see more posts on Switzerland KOF Economic Barometer, )
KOF Economic Barometer December 2016

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KOF Economic Barometer and reference time series: annual update

In September 2016, the scheduled annual update of the KOF Economic Barometer took place. The annual update of the Barometer concerns the following stages: redefinition of the pool of indicators that enter the selection procedure, update of the reference time series, a new execution of the variable selection procedure and a procedure to estimate missing monthly values of quarterly variables. The updated reference series is the smoothed continuous growth rate of Swiss GDP according to the new System of National Accounts ESVG 2010, released at the end of August 2015, which takes into account the release of the previous year’s annual Gross Domestic Product (GDP) data by the Swiss Federal Statistical Office. As a result of the indicator variable selection procedure, the updated KOF Economic Barometer is now based on 272 indicators (instead of 238 as in the previous vintage) from a pool of more than 400 potential indicator series. They are combined using statistically determined weights.

KOF Economic Barometer and Reference Series December 2016

(see more posts on Switzerland KOF Economic Barometer, )
KOF Economic Barometer and Reference Series December 2016

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KOF Zurich
KOF Swiss Economic Institute defines itself as one of the leading economic “think tanks” in Switzerland. In this prospect, KOF (acronym for the German word "Konjunkturforschungsstelle", which means business cycle research institute) aims to play two roles, one as a mediator between a broader public (politics, society) and the research community, and one as a leading platform for economists, especially within Switzerland.
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