ISAE Surveys
ISAE
continues the Consumer and Business Surveys carried out by ISCO, thus
guaranteeing the continuous historical series since 1982. The ISAE Surveys are
in keeping with the European harmonised scheme, which guarantees their
comparison with those produced by similar institutes in
The
synthetical results of those Surveys are diffused through press and are
available on the present website (see Surveys).
The
analytical notes commenting the Survey results are only sent to subscribers in
electronic format through the publication ISAE Surveys (see Diffusion
and Sale). The full text of ISAE Surveys since the year
2002 are available in Italian on the present website three months after their publication
at Inchieste
The
full data, endowed with statistical tables, historical series and comments are
also diffused in Italian in hardcopy in the periodical publication ISAE Congiuntura, published by ISAE itself (about 56 issues per year)
(see Diffusion and Sale).
The
data and their elaboration are presented in:
Monthly ISAE Survey on
Manufacturing and Extractive Firms
Monthly ISAE Survey on
Traditional Retail Trade and Large Distribution
Bi-Annual ISAE Investment
Survey
Quarterly ISAE
Territorial Survey
Monthly ISAE Comparative Business
Surveys between Italy, Germany and France
Ad hoc Surveys
Each
month ISAE surveys 2,000 Italian consumers on the overall economic situation
and on their own situations. The questions require assessments and forecasts on
the Italian situation, on employment, on the households’ economic situations,
on the convenience to save, on spending intentions and on intentions to
purchase durables. Besides, ISAE elaborates the consumers’ confidence climate
indicator. Data are diffused in the last decade of the reference month.
ISAE monitors the cyclical evolution of the
manufacturing sector in
The ISAE Monthly Survey on Traditional Retail
Trade and on Large Distribution is carried out on a theoretical panel of 1,000
firms, comprising two types of firms, four geographical partitions and five
sectors of activity. Surveys are carried out via mail. The questionnaire
includes seven qualitative questions with three kinds of reply concerning:
assessments on the business trend, on the volume of inventories, on the producer
price level, on three-month order-book forecasts, on the number of employed, on
producer prices and six-month forecasts on business trend.
The technique adopted for data
computation is based on balances. In keeping with the procedure adopted at the
Community level, the confidence climate is elaborated on a monthly basis using
seasonally adjusted balances (Tramo-Seats procedure) concerning the following
variables: assessments on business trend, six-month forecasts on business
trend, assessments on inventories. Since October 2002, data are made public in
the late-month and refer to the previous month.
Up to 2002,
a panel of about 1,000 Italian business firms operating in production services
(namely software-related industries, engineering, marketing, advertising,
accounting, administration and management consultancy, machinery and
equipment renting, research and development, waste disposal) used to
express quarterly assessments and short-term expectations on their major
firm variables, such as order books, turnover, employment, prices and on the
general economic trend. Data are diffused in February, May, September and
November. Since 2003, the Survey has been drawn up and diffused on a
monthly basis and it comprises all market services.
The Investment Survey is carried out on the
same panel of about 4,000 business firms interviewed for the ISAE monthly
Business Surveys, but it is limited to firms which have really made investments
during the reference year. The Surveys are traditionally made in Autumn (between
October and November) and Spring (between March and April) and provide both
qualitative (as all other ISAE Surveys) and quantitative data. Respondents are
invited to indicate their planned expenditure for investments in the current,
previous and following year and they provide indications on the investment
prices for those same years. Starting from those figures, ISAE elaborates an
estimate of the investment variation at constant prices (by adjusting data in
value with the prices indicated by each firm). Qualitative questions concern
the variation of investment plans during the year, the expenditure destinations
and the main factors influencing firms’ investment decisions.
The quarterly Territorial Survey analyses the
short-term economic cycle in the main Italian geographical partitions (i.e.
North-West, North-East, Centre and South) in a quarterly basis by using the
business and consumer survey data.
Each month, the ISAE Survey data are
compared with similar Surveys carried out by the Institut National de la Satistique et des Études Économiques
(INSEE) in
Ad hoc
Surveys on specific topics are carried out with no specific deadline (for
instance, Surveys on the black economy, on tax incentives for new investments
or on the change over).