The Predictive Ability of Consumer Attitudes, Stock Prices, and Non-Attitudinal Variables

Abstract

This article reports on tests of the comparative usefulness of consumer attitudes, stock prices, and some non-attitudinal variables for short-term forecasting of the value and number of motor vehicle sales. Both levels and changes of the variables are analyzed for a variety of time spans between 1952 and 1962. The work suggests that stock prices and some non-attitudinal variables, like the length of the work week, share the predictive ability of consumer attitudes, except perhaps for the early part of the 1952–62 period.