The COVID-19 pandemic and induced economic and social constraints have significantly
impacted the confidence of both consumers and businesses. Despite that, comprehensive …

We develop a novel approach integrating epidemiological and economic models that allows
data-based simulations during a pandemic. We examine the economically optimal opening …

This paper studies how managers plan under uncertainty. In a new survey panel on German
manufacturing firms, we show that uncertainty reflects change: Planning incorporates higher …

COVID-19 hit firms by surprise. In a high frequency, representative panel of German firms,
the business outlook declined and business uncertainty increased only at the time when the …

The highly dynamic nature of the COVID-19 crisis poses an unprecedented challenge to
policy makers around the world to take appropriate income-stabilizing countermeasures. To …

As one of the main pillars of the ifo Institute's economic research, the ifo Business Survey
has been conducted monthly since 1949, a year after the foundation of the ifo Institute. Since …

Using firm-level data, we study how firm expectations adjust to news while accounting for a)
the heterogeneity of news and b) the heterogeneity of firms. We classify news as either micro …

This chapter revisits survey evidence about firm expectations, with a particular focus on
firms' production and prices. We aim at synthesizing the evidence established on the basis …

The financial frictions channel highlights the importance of credit conditions for the
transmission of rising uncertainty. Using German firm-level survey data for the period 2003 …

In a globalized world with high international factor mobility, crises often spread quickly over
large parts of the world. Politicians carry a vital interest in keeping crises as small and short …