Forecasting Industrial Sales in Bulgaria: A Leading Indicator Approach

Abstract

This paper presents 3 month and 6 month composite leading indicators for Bulgarian industrial sales. The indicators are able to do a good job of tracking Bulgarian industrial sales, even given the relatively short period of time available in the data. Both the three and six month composite indicators were able to track both trends and turning points in the data. A diffusion index was also constructed but this was less successful in predicting turning points, though there is hope that in the future longer data sets will permit greater precision in this, as well as in the composite indicators.