On Some Advantages of Panel Data in Business Cycle Research

Abstract

Following the example of other central banks National Bank of Poland has been conducting its own business surveys since 1995. The important characteristics of these surveys is the sample which consists of regular participants and allows to do analysis on panel data. The paper raises two rarely analyzed aspects of the study: impact of new observations on the business indicator performance and relations between the qualitative assessments by surveyed firms of their current business situation and financial performance ratios. The results allow a better understanding of behavior of the survey data and challenge further analysis. (original abstract)