News April 2013

 €-coin holds practically stable in April

  • In the month of April €-coin remained basically unchanged at the marginally negative level registered in March, working out at -0.10%. 
  • The unfavourable assessments that emerged from household and business opinion surveys were offset by the positive contributions from manufacturing and foreign trade.

 

€-coin: the Euro Area Economy in One Figure – April 2013

  

The most recent real-time figures are: 

  Month

€-COIN

April 2012

-0.08

May 2012

-0.03

June 2012

-0.17

July 2012

-0.24

August 2012

-0.33

September 2012

-0.32

October 2012

-0.29

November 2012

-0.29

December 2012

-0.27

January 2013

-0.23

February 2013

-0.20

March 2013

-0.12

April 2013

-0.10
 
  
Click xls to download the excel file containing data or csv to download the comma separated version.



		For a more detailed analysis see the €-coin ANALYSIS section, for an overview of the recent behaviour of the series on which €-coin is based see the Euro area at a glance section. To see €-coin "in action" in a realtime simulation starting in December 2003 click here: See €-coin in real time




		€-coin in brief





			€-coin is a real-time, monthly estimate of area-wide GDP growth, computed each month by the staff of the Banca d’Italia. It provides a single number summarizing the current economic picture for the euro area.



			€-coin collates a large collection of statistical data (industrial production, business surveys, stock market and financial data, demand indicators, and more) and extracts the information that is relevant to forecast GDP. It tracks underlying GDP growth, preceding official GDP releases by several months. Essentially, the index:



			 



			(i) gives a monthly “smoothed” estimate of quarter-on-quarter GDP growth in the euro area;



			(ii) highlights the underlying trend by adjusting the growth rate for short-term fluctuations and measurement errors; that is, the index figure is an indicator of the euro area’s actual growth momentum.









				For further technical details on €-coin, see “New Eurocoin: Tracking economic growth in real time”, The Review of Economics and Statistics, No. 92, 1024-1034, available in the Bank of Italy working paper series (Temi di Discussione della Banca d’Italia) no. 631 http://www.bancaditalia.it/pubblicazioni/econo/temidi/td07/td631_07/td631 or CEPR Discussion Paper, No. 5633 http://www.cepr.org/pubs/new-dps/dplist.asp?dpno=5633.