For many countries, the PMI indicator is very useful. They are released on the first few days of the months for the previous month, and they give a very good idea of the business cycle in each country. For some countries, I have PMI data going back 25 years, for others just 10, or less, either because the people who compile the PMI indicators (S&P Global) haven't been doing it for longer than that, or because I just don't have the data (you have to be a subscriber to get back data). But if you want to analyse economic cycles, it helps a lot to have a long run of data.
What you can do is use other business surveys to estimate back data for the PMIs.
The chart below shows business confidence for Austria compared with the PMI data. You can see the close correlation.
Here's a similar comparison for Turkey, where the business confidence time series goes back to 1987, but the PMI (my data) only goes back to 2012.
I'm working on similar analyses for other countries, which will allow me to include a few other countries in my small-country world PMI ("Small 11", which will soon expand to the "Small 14")
Incidentally, the charts show that Austria's economy is falling more slowly (remember, the PMI/Business confidence surveys lead), pointing towards an upturn in Europe later this year, while Turkey's economy is slipping into recession after their Central Bank raised rates dramatically after the president was re-elected. (He wouldn't permit it before.) Interest rates in Turkey are far from peaking.
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