Measuring capacity utilisation in the italian manufacturing sector a comparison between time series and survey estimates

The aim of this paper is to provide an interpretation of the measure of capacity utilisation provided by the European Union harmonised survey on the Italian manufacturing sector. In doing so, we evaluate its ability to correctly track cyclical turning points and its contribution in explaining consum...

Full description

Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Malgarini, Marco
Other Authors: Paradiso, Antonio
Format: eBook
Language:English
Published: Paris OECD Publishing 2012
Subjects:
Online Access:
Collection: OECD Books and Papers - Collection details see MPG.ReNa
LEADER 01847nma a2200253 u 4500
001 EB001831230
003 EBX01000000000000000997676
005 00000000000000.0
007 cr|||||||||||||||||||||
008 180616 ||| eng
100 1 |a Malgarini, Marco 
245 0 0 |a Measuring capacity utilisation in the italian manufacturing sector  |h Elektronische Ressource  |b a comparison between time series and survey estimates  |c Marco, Malgarini and Antonio, Paradiso 
260 |a Paris  |b OECD Publishing  |c 2012 
300 |a 15 p.  |c 21 x 28cm 
653 |a Economics 
653 |a Italy 
700 1 |a Paradiso, Antonio 
041 0 7 |a eng  |2 ISO 639-2 
989 |b OECD  |a OECD Books and Papers 
028 5 0 |a 10.1787/jbcma-2012-5k8znwp2nts8 
773 0 |t OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis 
856 4 0 |a oecd-ilibrary.org  |u https://doi.org/10.1787/jbcma-2012-5k8znwp2nts8  |x Verlag  |3 Volltext 
082 0 |a 330 
520 |a The aim of this paper is to provide an interpretation of the measure of capacity utilisation provided by the European Union harmonised survey on the Italian manufacturing sector. In doing so, we evaluate its ability to correctly track cyclical turning points and its contribution in explaining consumer price index (CPI) inflation. The survey based measure results are a good co-incident indicator of business cycle, however it is generally outperformed by time series models in explaining inflation. We conclude that the standard "output gap" interpretation of the survey results is broadly confirmed by the data, however we cannot rule out at this stage that survey respondents may also consider the alternative "variable capacity utilisation" concept in answering the survey question. Keywords: Capacity utilisation, co-integration, unobserved component models, VAR.JEL Classification: E32, C22, E37