Resumen:
The United States (U.S.) Consumer Confidence Index (CCI) has been widely and unambiguously regarded as a good 'predictor' of the U.S.'s private investment and consumption. In order to demonstrate such with statistical rigor, co-integration and Granger causality tests were applied for 1978:Q1-2003:Q1. Two crucial results were obtained: a) co-integration was not found between CCI and investment and consumption, and b) CCI does not determine -in the Granger sense- either consumption or private investment. Conversely, we found causality from these two variables over CCI.