Jan Eklöf Irina Selivanova	26/10/09

EPSI Rating – International Benchmark trends for
Consumer Sentiment monitoring

Consumer Sentiment benchmarks

From year 2004 also questions about the consumer sentiment (how the consumers perceive the overall economic future the next 12 months, and how they perceive their own future economic situation).

These measures aim at giving an indication of how the demand will develop in the economy during the coming year. The higher score (between 0 – 100), the more optimistic are the individuals.
During the Fall 2005 - 2009, the following overall scores were obtained (the higher score the more positive future perception). The results for the respective year are based on measurement during September to December. It is possible to also split by month (as the number of observations are very high) in order to also trace short-term changes in this crucial business-cycle index.

The first common results for Fall 2009 measurements (interviews in primarily September) are now ready for the majority of assessed countries.

The anticipations by final consumers for the respective national economy in the coming year are illustrated in Graph 1, below. The estimates labelled 2008 refer to how the consumers expect the next year 2009, and 2009 ones mark respective assessments until Fall 2010.

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For the own economy, the following results, Graph 2, are obtained in terms of expectations on the coming year. The estimates labelled 2008 refer to how the consumers expect the next year 2009, and 2009 ones mark respective assessments until Fall 2010 perspectives.

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The relationship between the assessment of the overall national economic future and the perspective for the own economic/financial situation is illustrated below for based on the current study late 2008. This gives an indication on possible differences in assessment by country.

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These leading indicators for the economic development are regularly measured also in the future and reported in conjunction with EPSI-studies. This means that EPSI Rating has implemented an index system for performance assessment on a regular basis.

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EPSI Rating
For more information and analysis material of overall results, contact:
Jan Eklöf, phone: +46-70-6964185, E-mail: jan.eklof@epsi-rating.com