Methods of business cycle forecasting

In the summer and at the end of the year, the Ifo Institute publishes its economic forecasts for the Federal Republic of Germany. In the spring and autumn it takes part in the joint economic forecast of the six leading German economic research institutes. This article describes which macroeconomic aggregates are predicted and what methods are used, discussing in detail econometric forecasting, the indicator approach and the iterative-analytical procedure. In addition the special features of the Ifo economic forecasts are presented