Survey
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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