Business Cycle Analysis -- Forecasting Quarterly German GDP at Monthly Intervals Using Monthly Ifo Business Conditions Data -- Real Wages and Business Cycle Asymmetries -- Evaluating the German Inventory Cycle Using Data from the Ifo Business Survey -- Do Ifo Indicators Help Explain Revisions in German Industrial Production? -- A Leading Indicator for the Dutch Economy -- Survey Activity of the Ifo Institute -- Monetary Policy Analysis -- Firm Size and Monetary Policy Transmission — Evidence from German Business Survey Data -- The Role of the Ifo Business Climate Indicator and Asset Prices in German Monetary Policy -- Credibility and Transparency of Central Banks: New Results Based on Ifo’s World Economic Survey.

The business surveys of the Ifo Institute (short for Information and Forschung) are internationally renowned. Every month close to 7,000 enterprises are questioned on their short-term planning and their appraisals of the actual and future business situation. The confidence indicator frequently referred to as the Ifo Business Climate Index is derived from the responses to this Ifo Business Survey. While the Index attracts a lot of attention by practitioners (especially financial market analysts), the use and empirical exploitation of this and other components of Ifo business surveys is – amongst academics – still relatively scarce. The present volume, based on a conference entitled "The Academic Use of Ifo Survey Data", gives examples of timely research questions which can be addressed by qualitative survey data like the monthly Ifo Business Survey. It shows that this type of real-time data can be very informative when it comes to forecasting real economic activity or exploring monetary policy transmission. .