The paper illustrates and evaluates a Kalman filtering method for forecasting German real GDP at monthly intervals. German real GDP is produced at quarterly intervals but analysts and decision makers often want monthly GDP forecasts. Quarterly GDP could be regressed on monthly indicators, which...

Inventory fluctuations are an important phenomenon in business cycles. However, the preliminary data on inventory investment as published in the German national accounts are tremendously prone to revision and therefore ill-equipped to diagnose the current stance of the inventory cycle. The Ifo...

Nach den neuesten Ergebnissen des ifo Konjunkturtests Leasing hat sich der ifo Geschäftsklimaindex zu Beginn des Frühjahrs 2004 auf vergleichsweise hohem Niveau gefestigt. Nach vier Anstiegen in Folge ist die Erholung der Leasingbranche im Gang. Ausschlaggebend für die positive Entwicklung...