Forecasting Inflation in Western Balkans - Does One Shoe Fit All?
Inflation is one of key policy variables in the European Union. Keeping inflation below 2 percent is the main proclaimed goal of the European Central Bank. Monitoring inflation dynamics is even more important for the EU candidate countries, as it forms a crucial part of the so called Maastricht criteria. For Western Balkan countries, which have all experienced a hyperinflation period at the first phase of transition, inflation awareness seems to be even more relevant than in case of old EU member states. Although the recent past evidence has shown that the Western Balkan countries have gone through the period of mild inflation rates, the underlying instabilities of their economies might bring about yet another inflation spin.However, a literature on the determinants of the inflation generation process in the Western Balkan countries is, with a few notable exceptions, scarce. Even less is publicly available on the forecasting practices of the region’s central banks. Since this variable is expected to be one of the most strictly monitored if and when Western Balkan countries realise their EU aspirations, the analysis provided in this paper will try to fill the existing gap in the literature.
The forecasting horizon of inflationary expectations and perceptions in the EU - is it really 12 months?
We use survey based inflationary expectations to explore the forecasting horizons implicitly used by the respondents to questions about the expected rate of inflation during the coming 12 months. We examine the forecast errors, the mean error and the RMSEs, to study if the forecast horizon is truly 12 months as implied by the questionnaires. Our working hypothesis is that the forecast error has a U-shaped pattern, reaching its lowest value on the 12-month horizon. Our exploratory study reveals large differences across countries. For most countries, we get the expected U-shaped outcome for the forecast errors. The horizon implicitly used by respondents when answering the questions is not related to the explicit time horizon of the questionnaire. On average respondents use the same horizon when answering both questions.
Creativity profile of university and conservatory dance students.
What are dance students' creative potential, Special personality characteristics and preferences for high energy activities? Using standardized and original paper and pencil instruments, comparisons were made among dance students in university and conservatory settings, college students and art students. The results demonstrated that dance students are creative, show strong preference for dynamic figures, and have distinct personality characteristics. The university dance students differed from the conservatory students in several important ways.