The Ifo Institute for Economic Research is a Munich

Munich

Munich The city's motto is "" . Before 2006, it was "Weltstadt mit Herz" . Its native name, , is derived from the Old High German Munichen, meaning "by the monks' place". The city's name derives from the monks of the Benedictine order who founded the city; hence the monk depicted on the city's coat...

-based research institution. Ifo is an acronym from Information and Forschung (research). As one of Germany's largest economic think-tanks, it analyses economic policy and is widely known for its monthly Ifo Business Climate Index

Ifo Business Climate Index

The Ifo Business Climate Index is a closely followed leading indicator for economic activity in Germany prepared by the Ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich.- Elements :...

 for Germany. Its research output is significant: about a quarter of the articles published by German research institutes in international journals in economics in 2006 were from Ifo researchers.

Mission

• Supplying the public with economic data. The Institute organizes seminars and presentations by its own researchers and other economists. The Ifo Business Climate Index is well-known and is Ifo’s most prominent instrument for business-cycle analyses. The Institute also publishes a number of journals in economics.
• Generating its own data (e.g. Ifo Business Climate Index) via its enterprise surveys.
• Providing policy advice to influential public agencies, especially to federal and state ministries in Germany.
• Developing models to simulate the effects of market intervention in the economy.
• Research in economics. The Ifo Institute cooperates closely with many German universities, in particular with the University of Munich (LMU), as well as with numerous domestic and foreign research institutes.

Structure

The Ifo Institute is a registered society. Its statutes obligate it to be a non-profit organization that conducts empirical research in economics and the social sciences.

Two thirds of Ifo’s funding come from public subsidies (as an institution of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community) and approximately one third from contract research and policy advice, generally commissioned by public agencies. Research for the private sector is relatively insignificant.

Staff

The Ifo Institute currently employs about 150 people, approximately half of whom are researchers. The current Ifo president is Hans-Werner Sinn

Hans-Werner Sinn

Hans-Werner Sinn is a German economist and President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research.- Education and career :...

.

History

The Ifo Institute was established in 1949. To analyze the merging of the two parts of Germany, a branch was opened in Dresden in 1993. Under President Hans-Werner Sinn, its official name was expanded to the “Ifo Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich” as an expression of the close cooperation between Ifo and the University of Munich (LMU) and especially with the Center for Economic Studies

Center for Economic Studies

The Center for Economic Studies is an independent institute within the Faculty of Economics of the University of Munich .It promotes the international exchange of knowledge and ideas in public finance and other areas of economics...

 (CES) at LMU, headed by Hans-Werner Sinn

Hans-Werner Sinn

Hans-Werner Sinn is a German economist and President of the Ifo Institute for Economic Research.- Education and career :...

.

Departments

• Business Cycle Analyses and Surveys
• Public Finance
• Social Policy and Labour Markets
• Human Capital and Innovation
• Industrial Organisation and New Technologies
• Energy, Environment and Exhaustible Resources
• International Trade
• International Institutional Comparisons

Report on the German economy

The Ifo Institute participates in the twice yearly (spring and autumn) joint analysis of the state of the German and world economy, the so-called Gemeinschaftsdiagnose.
The other institutes are:
Institut für Weltwirtschaft (IfW) in Kiel

Kiel

Kiel is the capital and most populous city in the northern German state of Schleswig-Holstein, with a population of 238,049 .Kiel is approximately north of Hamburg. Due to its geographic location in the north of Germany, the southeast of the Jutland peninsula, and the southwestern shore of the...

; Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung

Halle Institute for Economic Research

The Halle Institute for Economic Research is a non-profit organization and one of the leading economic research institutes in Germany. The IWH was founded on January 1, 1992 and is a member of the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community....

 (IWH) in Halle

Halle, Saxony-Anhalt

Halle is the largest city in the German state of Saxony-Anhalt. It is also called Halle an der Saale in order to distinguish it from the town of Halle in North Rhine-Westphalia...

; and Rheinisch-Westfälisches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung (RWI) in Essen

Essen

- Origin of the name :In German-speaking countries, the name of the city Essen often causes confusion as to its origins, because it is commonly known as the German infinitive of the verb for the act of eating, and/or the German noun for food. Although scholars still dispute the interpretation of...

.

Evaluation

After the last evaluation in June 2006 the Senate of the Leibniz Association favored the further funding of the Institute. The importance of the Institute was confirmed in its final report, and the progress made by the Institute was lauded; criticism of some of the service areas was expressed.
The evaluation commission, consisting of 14 international academics and 4 practitioners, summarized its assessment as follows: "The Institute's output has increased tremendously in terms of publications, organization of scientific events, and policy advice. Now, Ifo makes a very strong impression. The research activities are considered to be very good in most parts, in some cases excellent. Policy consulting is regarded as very good, too. There has been movement of the service areas.”

Publication Series

• CESifo DICE Report
• CESifo Economic Studies
  CESifo Economic Studies
  CESifo Economic Studies is a journal on economics published by the CESifo Group. It was established as ifo Studien in 1955 and obtained its current title in 2002...
  
  
• CESifo Forum
• CESifo Working Papers
• CESifo World Economic Survey
• Economic Policy
• ifo Dresden berichtet
• ifo Konjunkturperspektiven
• ifo Schnelldienst
• Ifo Working Papers

External links

• Ifo Website (German or English)