The ifo Business Climate Index is the most important early indicator for developments in the German economy. It aggregates thousands of responses from the companies surveyed in the ifo business surveys on a monthly basis. This article presents the new ifo Business Climate for Germany, which will...

The German Income Tax Reform 2000, which announced a reduction in income tax rates to be implemented in a series of three stages, was welcomed by the public as a step towards unleashing lurking growth potentials. Nonetheless, in the course of the year 2001 a dispute arose, centering around the...

Der Bereich Dienstleistungen macht mehr als 70% der deutschen Bruttowertschöpfung aus, jedoch ist die Konjunkturanalyse- und Prognose in diesem Wirtschaftsbereich noch sehr unterentwickelt. Ein Blick in die Literatur zeigt, dass die Forschung hier noch am Anfang steht und sich bisher diesem...

In this paper, we assess the accuracy of macroeconomic forecasts at the regional level using a unique data set at quarterly frequency. We forecast gross domestic product (GDP) for two German states (Free State of Saxony and Baden-Württemberg) and Eastern Germany. We overcome the problem of a...

During the next decades the populations of most developed countries will grow older as a result of the low level of birth rates since the 1970s and/or the continuously increasing life expectancy. We show within a Generational Accounting framework how unsustainable the public finances of France,...

In the monthly ifo Business Survey around 9,000 German companies answer questions about their current business situation, expectations and plans for the near future as well as on other business variables. This paper provides an overview of all regular questions (monthly, quarterly, bi-annually,...

The ifo Institute for Economic Research has been conducting the ifo business survey since its foundation in 1949. To ensure stability of participation rates, regular sample recruitment is indispensable. Does the dispatch method matter for response rates of a recruiting campaign? To answer this...

Im Zuge der Corona-Krise greifen die Unternehmen so stark auf Kurzarbeit zurück wie noch nie. Insgesamt gingen bis Ende April für mehr als 10 Millionen Beschäftigte Anzeigen zur Kurzarbeit bei der Bundesagentur für Arbeit (BA) ein, im Mai kamen nochmals Anzeigen im Umfang von ca. 1 Million...