Handbook of ifo Surveys

As one of the main pillars of the ifo Institute's economic research, the ifo Business Survey has been conducted monthly since 1949, a year after the foundation of the ifo Institute. Since then, ifo has extended its survey activity by developing and administering additional business, expert, and public opinion surveys on a variety of topics. The survey results are of great value for economic research and provide an important basis for scientific policy analysis, while the indicators from the ifo Business Survey have proved to be indispensable for business cycle analysis and economic forecasting. In particular, the main indicator resulting from the ifo Business Survey, the ifo Business Climate Index for Germany, has emerged one of the most important early indicators for the German economy. Its monthly publication is frequently covered by the media and often impacts financial markets. This book provides a detailed overview of all ifo surveys. It outlines the methodological background, and provides selective and illustrative results together with interpretations. Filled with many potential applications of the survey results, the chapters also emphasize the immense research potential of the results and microdata. The structure of the book allows each chapter to be read and understood separately. First, the focus is on the ifo Business Survey with its many different results and indicators. Subsequently we present all other surveys, such as the ifo HR Survey, the ifo Education Survey, and the Economic Experts Survey, with selected results. All the microdata sets of the ifo surveys are collected at the LMU-ifo Economics & Business Data Center (EBDC). The final chapter of this book describes this data pool and how researchers can access it free-of-charge.