Consumer Climate Index (GfK)
The consumer climate index ( KKI ) of the Nuremberg market researcher GfK is intended to reflect the propensity to consume in private households and is usually published on the penultimate day of the reporting month at 8 a.m. To this end, GfK 2000 asked a representative group of people aged 14 and over about their income and consumption expectations over a period of 12 months, as well as their propensity to buy and their expectations of the overall economic situation . The consumer climate indicator tries to forecast the change in monthly private consumption expenditure on the basis of the sub-components. The index is, however, quite susceptible to revision, and the correlation with actual private consumer spending has been weak in recent years. The subcomponents of which propensity to buy has the highest explanatory power for private consumer spending are more interesting.
Despite these deficits in the forecast, the consumer climate index is also the basis for the German component of EU consumer confidence.
method
The selected people are asked the following three questions with the specified answer options:
Economic expectations
"How do you think the general economic situation will develop in the next twelve months?" (Improve - stay the same - worsen)
Income Expectation
"How do you think the financial situation of your household will develop in the next twelve months?" (Improve - stay the same - worsen)
Propensity to consume and buy
"Do you think that it is advisable to make larger purchases at the moment?" (The moment is favorable - neither favorable nor unfavorable - unfavorable)
Calculation of the index values
The percentage of negative answers is subtracted from the positive for each question. If all respondents answer with "will get much better" or "will get better", the value is +100, all respondents are of the opposite opinion at -100. According to GfK, the balance of positive and negative answers is finally converted so that the long-term average is 0, but the indicator remains between +100 and -100.
For example, for October and September 2011 the result is as follows.
| October 2011 | September 2011 | |
|---|---|---|
| Economic expectations | -6.2 | 4.8 |
| Income Expectation | 36.1 | 35.1 |
| Propensity to buy | 31.2 | 29.7 |
The actual consumer climate index is calculated from the individual indices.
Web links
source
- ↑ a b Handelsblatt Wirtschaftslexikon [1]
- ↑ The capers of the GfK consumption indicator , article from the manager magazine.
- ↑ Press release on the GfK consumer climate index for October 2011 (PDF; 53 kB)