Ifo Survey Data in Business Cycle and Monetary Policy Analysis

1. Front Matter

   Pages I-XII

   PDF

2. Survey Activity of the Ifo Institute

   • Gernot Nerb

   Pages 1-15

3. Business Cycle Analysis

   1. Forecasting Quarterly German GDP at Monthly Intervals Using Monthly Ifo Business Conditions Data

      • Stefan Mittnik, Peter Zadrozny

      Pages 19-48

   2. Real Wages and Business Cycle Asymmetries

      • Ulrich Woitek

      Pages 49-60

   3. Evaluating the German Inventory Cycle Using Data from the Ifo Business Survey

      • Thomas A. Knetsch

      Pages 61-92

   4. Do Ifo Indicators Help Explain Revisions in German Industrial Production?

      • Jan Jacobs, Jan-Egbert Sturm

      Pages 93-114

   5. A Leading Indicator for the Dutch Economy

      • Henk Kranendonk, Jan Bonenkamp, Johan Verbruggen

      Pages 115-142

4. Monetary Policy Analysis

   1. Firm Size and Monetary Policy Transmission — Evidence from German Business Survey Data

      • Michael Ehrmann

      Pages 145-172

   2. The Role of the Ifo Business Climate Indicator and Asset Prices in German Monetary Policy

      • Elmer Sterken

      Pages 173-201

   3. Credibility and Transparency of Central Banks: New Results Based on Ifo’s World Economic Survey

      • Sandra Waller, Jakob de Haan

      Pages 203-223

A pilot ?ying to a distant city needs to check his position, ?ight path and weather conditions, and must constantly keep his plane under control to land safely.TheIfosurveydataprovideadvanceinformationonchangingeconomic weather conditions and help keep the economy under control. To be sure, by their very nature they only provide short-term information. But like a plane, the economy will not be able to reach its long-term goals if it strays o? course in the short term. The Ifo survey data provide the most comprehensive and accurate, - to-date database in Europe on the state of the business cycle, and the Ifo climate indicator, sometimes simply called “The Ifo”, is the most frequently cited indicator of its kind in Europe. Both the European stock market and theeuroreacttoourindicator.Ifo’smethodologyfordeterminingthebusiness climateindicatorhasbeenexportedtomorethan?ftycountries,mostrecently toTurkeyandChina.TheIfopeoplewereproudtohavebeenaskedtohelpset up polling systems in these countries. It is said that the Chinese government relies more on their “Ifo indicator” than on their o?cial accounting statistics.

• Business Survey
• Empirical Economics
• Forecasting Business Cycle
• Monetary Policy
• Survey Data
• calculus
• linear optimization

• Department of Economics, University of Konstanz, Konstanz, Germany

  Jan-Egbert Sturm

• TWI — Thurgau Institute of Economics, Kreuzlingen 2, Switzerland

  Jan-Egbert Sturm

• Ifo Institute for Economic Research, Munich, Germany

  Timo Wollmershäuser

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