IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ces/ceswps/_12665.html

The ifo Business Climate Index for Germany: A Vintage Dataset

Author

Listed:
  • Klaus Wohlrabe

  • Stefan Sauer

Abstract

The ifo Business Climate Index for Germany is one of the most widely used leading indicators for the German economy. This paper introduces a new vintage dataset that contains all originally published time series of the ifo Business Climate Index and its components since January 2004. The dataset covers eight sectors - including the aggregate indicators for Overall Economy and Industry and Trade as well as six sectoral indicators - each with three time series for business climate, current business situation, and business expectations. It documents the historical evolution of the index across publication vintages and captures revisions arising from seasonal adjustment and from methodological changes, such as the transition to the X-13ARIMA-SEATS seasonal adjustment method in 2015 and the inclusion of the service sector in 2018. A revision analysis covering the period from April 2018 onward shows that first-release values are highly reliable: mean revisions are close to zero across all series, and the directional signal of the month-on-month change is confirmed by subsequent vintages in more than nine out of ten months for the headline indicator. The dataset is publicly available at https://www.ifo.de/ifo-zeitreihen and enables a wide range of further research, including real-time forecasting exercises, turning-point analyses, and studies of financial market reactions to initial data releases.

Suggested Citation

  • Klaus Wohlrabe & Stefan Sauer, 2026. "The ifo Business Climate Index for Germany: A Vintage Dataset," CESifo Working Paper Series 12665, CESifo.
    • Handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12665
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.ifo.de/DocDL/cesifo1_wp12665.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2018. "The New ifo Business Climate Index for Germany," CESifo Forum, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 19(02), pages 59-64, July.
    2. Michael P. Clements & Ana Beatriz Galvão, 2013. "Real‐Time Forecasting Of Inflation And Output Growth With Autoregressive Models In The Presence Of Data Revisions," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 28(3), pages 458-477, April.
    3. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2025. "Explaining Business Sentiment: Insights from the ifo Business Survey," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 21(2), pages 213-235, December.
    4. Steffen Henzel, 2015. "Prognosekraft des ifo Konjunkturtests – Einfluss der neuen Saisonbereinigung mit X-13ARIMA-SEATS," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 68(01), pages 59-63, January.
    5. repec:ces:ifofor:v::y:2018:i::p: is not listed on IDEAS
    6. Robert Lehmann, 2011. "Auswirkungen der Umstellung auf die neue Wirtschaftszweigklassifikation für die Regionalauswertung des ifo Konjunkturtests," ifo Dresden berichtet, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 18(05), pages 28-31, October.
    7. Robert Lehmann, 2023. "The Forecasting Power of the ifo Business Survey," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 19(1), pages 43-94, March.
    8. Croushore, Dean & Stark, Tom, 2001. "A real-time data set for macroeconomists," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 105(1), pages 111-130, November.
    9. Hylleberg, S. (ed.), 1992. "Modelling Seasonality," OUP Catalogue, Oxford University Press, number 9780198773184.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2020. "ifo Handbuch der Konjunkturumfragen," ifo Beiträge zur Wirtschaftsforschung, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 88, April.
    2. Felix Leiss & Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2025. "Questions, Measures, and Meaning: Interpreting Indicators from the ifo Business Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 12094, CESifo.
    3. Bec, Frédérique & Kanda, Patrick, 2020. "Is inflation driven by survey-based, VAR-based or myopic expectations? An empirical assessment from US real-time data," The North American Journal of Economics and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 51(C).
    4. Benjamin Born & Zeno Enders & Manuel Menkhoff & Gernot J. Müller & Knut Niemann & Gernot Müller, 2022. "Firm Expectations and News: Micro v Macro," CESifo Working Paper Series 10192, CESifo.
    5. Wolfgang Nierhaus & Timo Wollmershäuser, 2016. "ifo Konjunkturumfragen und Konjunkturanalyse: Band II," ifo Forschungsberichte, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, number 72, February.
    6. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2015. "Die Saisonbereinigung im ifo Konjunkturtest – Umstellung auf das X-13ARIMA-SEATS-Verfahren," ifo Schnelldienst, ifo Institute - Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich, vol. 68(01), pages 32-42, January.
    7. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2025. "Explaining Business Sentiment: Insights from the ifo Business Survey," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 21(2), pages 213-235, December.
    8. Dorine Boumans & Clemens Fuest & Carla Krolage & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2020. "Expected effects of the US tax reform on other countries: global and local survey evidence," International Tax and Public Finance, Springer;International Institute of Public Finance, vol. 27(6), pages 1608-1630, December.
    9. Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2024. "What Is Behind the ifo Business Climate? Evidence from a Meta-Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 11482, CESifo.
    10. Robert Lehmann & Magnus Reif, 2021. "Predicting the German Economy: Headline Survey Indices Under Test," Journal of Business Cycle Research, Springer;Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys (CIRET), vol. 17(2), pages 215-232, November.
    11. Keijsers, Bart & van Dijk, Dick, 2025. "Does economic uncertainty predict real activity in real time?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 41(2), pages 748-762.
    12. Kevin Lee & James Morley & Kalvinder Shields & Madeleine Sui-Lay Tan, 2018. "The Australian real-time fiscal database: An overview and an illustration of its use in analysing planned and realised fiscal policies," Discussion Papers 2018/11, University of Nottingham, Centre for Finance, Credit and Macroeconomics (CFCM).
    13. Jonas Hennrich & Stefan Sauer & Klaus Wohlrabe, 2023. "Who Reports the Mood in German Boardrooms? Evidence from the ifo Business Survey," CESifo Working Paper Series 10571, CESifo.
    14. Pantelis Promponas & David Alan Peel, 2016. "Forecasting the nominal exchange rate movements in a changing world. The case of the U.S. and the U.K," Working Papers 144439514, Lancaster University Management School, Economics Department.
    15. Michael P. Clements, 2017. "Assessing Macro Uncertainty in Real-Time When Data Are Subject To Revision," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 35(3), pages 420-433, July.
    16. Frédérique Bec & Patrick Kanda, 2019. "Is inflation driven by survey-based, VAR-based or myopic expectations?," Working Papers hal-02175836, HAL.
    17. Petropoulos, Fotios & Apiletti, Daniele & Assimakopoulos, Vassilios & Babai, Mohamed Zied & Barrow, Devon K. & Ben Taieb, Souhaib & Bergmeir, Christoph & Bessa, Ricardo J. & Bijak, Jakub & Boylan, Joh, 2022. "Forecasting: theory and practice," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 38(3), pages 705-871.
      • Fotios Petropoulos & Daniele Apiletti & Vassilios Assimakopoulos & Mohamed Zied Babai & Devon K. Barrow & Souhaib Ben Taieb & Christoph Bergmeir & Ricardo J. Bessa & Jakub Bijak & John E. Boylan & Jet, 2020. "Forecasting: theory and practice," Papers 2012.03854, arXiv.org, revised Jan 2022.
    18. Tamás Kiss & Stepan Mazur & Hoang Nguyen & Pär Österholm, 2023. "Modeling the relation between the US real economy and the corporate bond‐yield spread in Bayesian VARs with non‐Gaussian innovations," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(2), pages 347-368, March.
    19. Strohsal, Till & Wolf, Elias, 2020. "Data revisions to German national accounts: Are initial releases good nowcasts?," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(4), pages 1252-1259.
    20. Gonçalves, Sílvia & McCracken, Michael W. & Yao, Yongxu, 2025. "Bootstrapping out-of-sample predictability tests with real-time data," Journal of Econometrics, Elsevier, vol. 247(C).

    More about this item

    Keywords

    ;
    ;
    ;
    ;

    JEL classification:

    • C43 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric and Statistical Methods: Special Topics - - - Index Numbers and Aggregation
    • C80 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Data Collection and Data Estimation Methodology; Computer Programs - - - General

    NEP fields

    This paper has been announced in the following NEP Reports:

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ces:ceswps:_12665. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Klaus Wohlrabe (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/cesifde.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.