ifo Business Climate Index Rises (September 2020)

The ifo Business Climate is based on approx. 9,000 monthly responses from businesses in manufacturing, the service sector, trade, and construction. Companies are asked to give their assessments of the current business situation and their expectations for the next six months. They can describe their situation as “good,” “satisfactory,” or “poor” and their business expectations for the next six months as “more favorable,” “unchanged,” or "less favorable.” The balance value of the current business situation is the difference in the percentage shares of the responses “good” and “poor”; the balance value of expectations is the difference in the percentage shares of the responses “more favorable” and “less favorable.” The business climate is a transformed mean of the balances of the business situation and the expectations. To calculate the index values, the transformed balances are all normalized to the average for the year 2015.

An  increase in the dispersion measure signals greater uncertainty on the part of companies. Values can range between 0 and 100. The measure is based on responses to the question relating to expectations regarding the six-month business outlook and is generated from the dispersion of these expectations at any time.