N.15/2001 by Paolo Carnazza

THE ROLE OF SHORT-TERM ECONOMIC INFORMATION

IN INDUSTRIAL FIRMS’ STRATEGIES

ABSTRACT

The aim of this paper is to analyse the role of short-term economic information within industrial firms’ strategies. More specifically, the paper tries to identify the usefulness of business survey results for firms and to verify whether and how they are used to obtain specific objectives. Moreover, the analysis tries to highlight the main reasons leading firms to make use of qualitative data and the relative importance of the main macroeconomic indicators attaching a specific weight to each of them.

To this end, in Spring 2000 a questionnaire was elaborated and sent to about 5,000 industrial firms participating to the traditional bi-annual investment survey carried out by ISAE within the harmonised European Commission business surveys.

The main results concern manufacturing firms, subdivided by sector (Pavitt classification), dimension (small, medium-sized and large firms) and geographical area.