The Insitute for Economic and Industrial Studies (IOBE) conducts monthly surveys of households and businesses to measure their confidence and expectations.

The Economic Sentiment Indicator combines five individual indexes to measure the broad economic sentiment. The indexes the compose the Economic Sentiment Indicator and their weights are:

·       Industrial Confidence Indicator (40%)

·       Construction Confidence Indicator (5%)

·       Services Confidence Indicator (30%)

·       Consumer Confidence Indicator (20%)

·       Retail Trade Confidence Indicator (5%)

The next graph presents the evolution of the Economic Sentiment Indicator.

Consumer confidence measures the optimism or pessimism of consumers with respect to economic prospects for their household finances and to the overall economy. The next graph presents the evolution of the Consumer Confidence Index.

Business sentiment measures the optimism or pessimism of businesses with respect to prospects for their firms’ activity and the broader sector of economic activity in which they operate (industry, construction, retail trade or services). The next graph presents the evolution of the Business Sentiment Index in the individual sectors.

The Employment Expectations Indicator measures managers' predictions regarding employment, with the long-run average being normalized to 100. Values greater than 100 suggest that managers are more optimistic about employment than the long-run average, while values below 100 suggest that they are more pessimistic.

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