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Institute IfoWorldEconomicSurvey–
DescriptionandInformation
Aim,ConceptandCountryCoverage
TheaimoftheWorldEconomicSurvey(WES)
istoprovideanaccuratepictureofthecurrent
economicsituation,aswellaseconomictrends
in over 100 key advanced, emerging or devel‐
oping economies by polling more than 1,000
economic experts. Unlike official statistics,
which are largely based on quantitative infor‐
mation, WES focuses on qualitative infor‐
mation by asking economists for their assess‐
ment of selected key economic indicators for
the present and for the short‐term future.
While official statistics on an international
basisareonlyavailableafteracertaintimelag,
WESresultsstandoutbyvirtueofthefactthat
they are rapid, up‐to‐date and comparable
fromcountrytocountry.Thecountrycoverage
of WES, together with the average number of
questionnaires received over the past 25
years,areillustratedbytheworldmapbelow.
Theapproachofthisexpertsurveyistomoni‐
tor the general economic situation and ex‐
pected economic developments of a whole
economyby meansofsector‐unspecific,quali‐
tative expert statements. This means that the
problem of representativeness (drawing con‐
clusions from a sample to the entire popula‐
tion), which is often experienced in survey
designs, does not apply to WES. In the selec‐
tion of experts for the poll, the emphasis is
thereforenotplacedonthenumberofexperts
per country, but rather on their professional
competence in economic matters. Participants
must be country insiders who are well‐
informed about economic processes in the
countryandareabletoevaluatethem.Hence,
itispossibletomakeaconcretestatementon
theeconomicdevelopmentsofacountryeven
withjustafewexperts’statements.
Questionnaire
ThequestionnaireisinEnglishandisuniform‐
lydesignedforallcountriesnotonlythanksto
the international character of the survey, but
alsoforreasonsofconsistency,timeandcosts.
The questionnaire predominantly consists of
WES-Country coverage with average number of participants (1990-2014)
Average number of participants
n/a
10 - 15
<4
16 - 21
4-9
>21
www.ifo.de/wes1/3
Institute qualitativequestionsdealingwitheightstand‐
ard economic topics, regularly recurring addi‐
tional questions, as well as one‐off questions
on current economic or politically relevant
issuesintheworld.
Questionnaireoverview:
Quarterlyquestions
Current assessments and expectations for the next six months
regarding:
‐ Overalleconomy
‐ Capitalexpenditure
‐ Privateconsumption
Expectationsondevelopmentsforthenextsixmonthsregarding
‐
‐
‐
‐
‐
‐
Foreigntradevolume(Exportsandimports)
Tradebalance
Inflationrate
Short‐termandlong‐terminterestrates
ValueoftheUSdollarvis‐à‐visthenationalcurrency
Domesticshareprices
Quantitativeforecastson
‐ Averageinflationrate(CPI)forthecurrentyear
‐ Inflationratein5years(askedsinceend‐2014)
Currentappraisals
‐ ofthevaluationoftheleadingworldcurrencies
comparedtotherespectivenationalcurrency
Semi‐annualquestions
‐ Importanteconomicproblems(e.g.unemployment,infla‐
tion,publicdeficitsorforeigndebt)
‐ Assessmentoftheclimateforforeigninvestorsregarding
legal and administrative restrictions or political sta‐
bility
‐ Extent of constraint of supply of bank credit to firms
(askedsince2013)
Annualquestions
‐ GDPforecastforthecurrentyear(quantitative)
‐ Mid‐termforecast(3to5years)forGDP(quantitative)
AnalysisandWeighting
There are three possible response categories
for the predominantly qualitative questions:
“good/better/higher”forpositiveassessments
or improvement, “satisfactory/about the
same/nochange” forneutralassessments and
“bad/worse/lower” for negative assessments
ordeterioration.Theindividualresponses are
transferredtoanordinalscalefromone(nega‐
tive) to nine (positive), where five is neutral.
The individual replies are combined for each
country without weighting as an arithmetic
meanofallsurveyresponsesintherespective
country.Overallgradeswithinarangegreater
than 5 indicate that positive answers prevail,
and this to an even greater degree the more
the value approaches the upper end of the
scale, i.e. nine. The same applies inversely to
the lower end of the scale from one to five.
This procedure is intended to avoid the mis‐
leading impression that the data arise from
exact percentage rates, instead of potentially
only a few expert statements. While aggregat‐
ingtheresultstogroupsofcountries(e.g.euro
area, EU28), the country results are weighted
accordingtothecountry’sshareintotalworld
trade. The trade figures published by the UN
are used (imports and exports of a country in
US dollars). The reason for using the foreign
tradevolumeisthatforaworldwidebusiness‐
cycle observation, the cross‐country trade re‐
lations provide a more sensible basis for the
weighting than, for example, the volume of
GDP.
WhoAretheWESExperts?1
Theexpertswhoparticipateinoursurveyare
well informed about economic developments.
Withfewexceptions,allofourpanelmembers
are located in the country on which they re‐
port. About 86% of WES panel members are
male.Theagedistributionis25%respectively
fortheagecategories35‐44,45‐54and55‐65.
Only 11% of experts are younger than 35,
while 13% are older than 65. The absolute
majority of WES panellists have completed a
tertiaryeducation,andover40%haveaPh.D.
This high share of WES participants with a
doctorate can be explained by the fact that
about one third of all panellists work for re‐
search institutes, universities or think tanks.
About 16% are employed by financial institu‐
tions such as banks or insurance companies,
14% are affiliated with (industrial) firms and
about13%arerepresentativesofassociations
orchambersofindustryortrade.Theremain‐
1 The following statements refer to a special survey of October
2014, in which half of the WES panellists participated. All
statisticsrefertothetotalresultsofthespecialsurvey.The
presented distribution applies approximately to the whole
expertpanel,butmaydifferfromcountrytocountry.
www.ifo.de/wes2/3
Institute ing25%workfornationalministriesoragen‐
cies,centralbanks,internationalorganisations,
embassies or are (private, independent) con‐
sultants(seeFigurebelow).Roughlyhalfofthe
Affiliation
100%
2.1
5.1
90%
5.2
6.0
80%
70%
7.5
13.0
60%
50%
40%
14.3
16.4
Embassyorconsulate
Internationalorganisation
Centralbank
Nationalministryoragency
Other(private,independent
consultantsormedia)
Associationorchamber
Non‐financialcompany
30%
Bank,financialinstitution
20%
30.4
Researchinstitute,university
10%
0%
Source:WEStest2014.
WES experts have a degree in economics.
Around19%haveanacademicbackgroundin
business, while 10% studied natural sciences
(mathematics, information technology or en‐
gineering). The remaining 17% are from pro‐
fessional and applied sciences, other social
sciences, law or humanities. Participation in
theWESsurveyisstrictlyvoluntary.Inreturn
for their expertise, all participating experts
receivethecompletesurveyresults,exclusive‐
lyandimmediatelyafterpublication.Thus,the
sole incentive for the experts’ participation in
the survey is purely a professional interest in
thesurveyedtopicandthesurveyresults.
PollingProcedures
Data collection for each survey begins in the
firstmonthoftherespectivequarter(January,
April, July and October). Survey participants
arerequiredtorespondwithinaperiodoffour
weeks and are free to choose from three sur‐
vey modes: paper and pencil, online or via e‐
mail. As of 2009, the online mode has proven
the most popular way of completing the sur‐
vey.Priortothatdate,mostparticipantsopted
for the traditional paper and pencil method.
Wenowreceivearoundthreequartersofsur‐
vey responses electronically. Over half of the
replies are received before the first reminder,
which is sent out around ten days after the
survey has started. By the time of the second
reminder – which is dispatched about one
weekafterthefirstreminder–85%ofthere‐
sponses have arrived. We receive the remain‐
ing15%ofrepliesoneweekbeforethesurvey
ends. The response rate is about 75 percent.
The median duration of participation is ten
quarters, which means that about 50 percent
oftherespondentstakepartinWESforabout
2½ years. Around 25 percent of participants
remainonthepanelforatleast4½years.
DisseminationandData
The survey results are released in the second
monthofeachquarter(February,May,August
and November) with the press release of the
IfoEconomicClimatefortheEuroAreaandthe
IfoWorldEconomicClimate,bothpublishedas
of 2002. The detailed survey results, along
with an extensive analysis of all regions and
countries,arepublishedintheEnglishpublica‐
tionCESifoWorldEconomicSurveyandappear
in German in the ifo Schnelldienst. Long‐time
series for nearly all variables are available as
of1989andmaybeordereddirectlyfromthe
Ifo Institute or obtained from various data
providers (Thomson Reuters Datastream,
Macrobond etc.). The survey was launched in
1981 as the Economic Survey International
(ESI) and was renamed in 2002. Researchers,
whoareinterestedinusingWESmicrodatain
relation to a clearly specified research topic,
shouldcontacttheLMU‐ifoEconomics&Busi‐
ness
Data
Center
(EBDC)
www.ifo.de/de/w/3RALwsSng for further
details of the data access concept and the ap‐
plicationprocedure.
Contact:
JohannaGarnitz
IfoInstitute
IfoCenterforBusinessCycleAnalysisandSurveys
Phone:+49(0)89/9224‐1227
Email:[email protected]
www.ifo.de/wes3/3