Importance and predictive capabilities of business cycle surveys in official statistics

The thesis is focused on the status of the business cycle surveys in national and international statistics and on the assessment of their ability to predict the economic development. The theoretical part focuses on the description of the business cycle surveys and their harmonization across the European Union, questionnaires content, indicators structure and dissemination of results. There is also described a detailed procedure of data processing and calculation of confidence indicators in the conditions of the Czech Republic, which is closely related to the analysis of their predictive abilities. The practical part contains the analysis of the basic characteristic of the business cycle surveys and gross value added time series. Based on these analysis, the thesis evaluate the forecasting ability of the Economic Sentiment Indicator as well as sector confidence indicators (industry, construction, trade and services). The last chapter formulates proposals and recommendations relative to the content of the questionnaires, data collection, data processing and the confidence indicators construction that could be employed in order to achieve better predictive ability