The Ifo Institute for Economic Research has been conducting regular business surveys since its foundation in 1949. The most well-known of Ifo's surveys is the Ifo Business Survey (ifo Konjunkturtest). The micro data of the Ifo Business Survey are accessible to external researchers on-site at Ifo...

In this paper we present the Ifo Investment Database, which provides annual investment data for 12 investment assets in 50 German industries from 1991 onward. The data is consistent with national accounts statistics provided by the German Federal Statistical Office and is based on investments in...

The use of large datasets for macroeconomic forecasting has received a great deal of interest recently. Boosting is one possible method of using high-dimensional data for this purpose. It is a stage-wise additive modelling procedure, which, in a linear specification, becomes a variable selection...

The use of large datasets for macroeconomic forecasting has received a great deal of interest recently. Boosting is one possible method of using high-dimensional data for this purpose. It is a stage-wise additive modelling procedure, which, in a linear specification, becomes a variable selection...

The monthly ifo Business Survey is the basis for numerous economic indicators, such as the ifo Business Climate Index Germany. Moreover, the anonymized micro data can be used for a wide range of research projects. In order to obtain robust results, the panel of survey participants must be large...

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,...

Abbau von staatlicher Bürokratie würde die Investitionsbereitschaft von Familienunternehmen hierzulande deutlich erhöhen. Das ist eines der Ergebnisse des "Jahresmonitors der Stiftung Familienunternehmen", der Teil des umfangreichsten Datenbankprojekts zu Familienunternehmen im...

Eine große Mehrheit der deutschen Unternehmen schätzt den internationalen Steuerwettbewerb als stark oder sehr stark ein. Zu den Auswirkungen auf ihren Betrieb befragt, geben insbesondere die großen Familienunternehmen etwa doppelt so häufig negative Folgen zu Protokoll als große...

Familienunternehmen zeigen bei der Planung von Klimaschutzmaßnahmen eine hohe innere Motivation. Oft ausgehend von den Gesellschaftern oder den Wünschen ihrer Kunden haben sie viele Maßnahmen schon umgesetzt, vor allem in der Energieerzeugung und in der Abfallwirtschaft. Sie sehen aber auch...

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...