ifo Time-series
With its business surveys the ifo Institute collects data that are of great interest for empirical economic research both in Germany and abroad. Some long time-series are provided in Excel format for facilitating further processing by the user.
ifo Business Survey
Content
ifo Business Climate
Germany:
Index (2015=100, seasonally adjusted): Business Climate, Business Situation, Business Expectations.
Balances (seasonally adjusted): Business Climate, Business Situation, Business Expectations.
ifo Dispersion (seasonally adjusted and three months moving average).
Manufacturing, Services, Trade, Construction:
Balances (seasonally adjusted): Business Climate, Business Situation, Business Expectations.
ifo Business Climate for Eastern Germany
Index (2015=100, seasonally adjusted): Business Climate, Business Situation, Business Expectations.
ifo World Economic Climate
ifo Economic Climate for the Euro Area
Balances: Economic Climate Euro Area, Present Situation, Expectations next 6 months
Historical Time Series
ifo Business Climate Index for Germany - Vintage Dataset
Content
This dataset contains all originally published time series of the ifo Business Climate Index for Germany and its components since January 2005.
Source: ifo Institute, Munich.
Files
One Excel file per sector, each with three sheets:
- Climate (ifo Business Climate)
- Situation (current business situation)
- Expectations (business expectations)
Sectors
- Germany (from 01/2005, new IBC)
- Industry and Trade (from 01/1991)
- Manufacturing (from 01/1991)
- Services (from 01/2005)
- Trade.xlsx(from 01/1991)
- Wholesale Trade (from 01/1991)
- Retai Trade (from 01/1991)
- Construction (from 01/1991)
Sheet structure
Row 1: Column headers
Column A: Reference month (e.g. 'January 2020')
Columns B+: Vintages (vYYYYmMM), one column per publication date. Triangular structure: the latest vintage contains the longest time series.
Sources of revisions
- Monthly revisions from seasonal adjustment (X-13ARIMA-SEATS from 01/2015, previously ASA-II).
- Methodological changes:
05/2011: New NACE 2008, base year 2000 -> 2005
01/2015: Switch to X-13ARIMA-SEATS
04/2018: New ifo Business Climate Index for Germany incl. services; base year changed to 2015
Note on 'Industry and Trade'
Vintages up to 03/2018 refer to the former 'ifo Business Climate Index for Industry and Trade' (excluding services). From 04/2018 onwards, 'Germany' is the new aggregate climate including services.
Citation
Sauer, S. and Wohlrabe, K. (2026). The ifo Business Climate Index for Germany: A Vintage Dataset.
Contact: wohlrabe@ifo.de, sauer@ifo.de
Content
ifo Export Climate
Ifo Export Climate (index values, seasonally-adjusted); Special trade exports (annual rate of change, real, seasonally-adjusted)
ifo Import Climate
ifo Import Climate (index values, seasonally-adjusted)
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