Sector-based Forecasts in Manufacturing

Systematic economic forecasts on a sector level are rare both in practice and in scientific literature. This article forecasts the growth rates of 22 economic segments in manufacturing. These include central branches like mechanical engineering, the chemicals industry and the food industry. All of the questions regularly asked in the Ifo Business Survey are used as indicators on a branch level. In addition to the well-known questions about the current business situation and outlook, these questions also contain information about prices, production, inventories and exports. The results show that, with the help of Ifo indicators, the forecasts in all branches can be improved versus an autoregressive benchmark.