Stock Price Reactions to Wire News from the European Central Bank: Evidence from Changes in the Sentiment Tone and International Market Indexes

International Advances in Economic Research - This paper examines the link between changes in the sentiment tone with respect to the European Central Bank’s (ECB) announcements and stock...     

Predicting European Union Recessions in the Euro Era: The Yield Curve as a Forecasting Tool of Economic Activity

Several studies have established the predictive power of the yield curve for the U.S. and various European countries. In this paper we use data from the European Union (EU15), from 1994:Q1 to 2008:Q3. We use the European Central Bank’s euro area yield spreads to predict European real GDP deviations from the long-run trend. We also augment the models tested with non monetary policy variables: the unemployment and a composite European stock price index. The methodology employed is a probit model of the inverse cumulative distribution function of the standard distribution using several formal forecasting and goodness of fit evaluation tests. The results show that the yield curve augmented with the composite stock index has significant forecasting power in terms of the EU15 real output.     

GDP trend deviations and the yield spread: the case of eight E.U. countries

Several studies have established the predictive power of the yield curve in terms of real economic activity. In this paper we use data for a variety of E.U. countries: both EMU (Germany, France, Italy, Portugal and Spain) and non-EMU members (Norway, Sweden and the U.K.). The data used range from 1991:Q1 to 2009:Q3. For each country, we extract the long run trend and the cyclical component of real economic activity, while the corresponding ECB euro area government benchmark bond interest rates of long and short term maturities are used for the calculation of the yield spreads. We also augment the models tested with non monetary policy variables: the respective unemployment rates and stock indices. The methodology employed in the effort to forecast real output, is a probit model of the inverse cumulative distribution function of the standard distribution, using several formal forecasting and goodness of fit evaluation criteria. The results show that the yield curve augmented with the non-monetary variables has significant forecasting power in terms of real economic activity but the results differ qualitatively between the individual economies examined raising non-trivial policy implications.