Federal Statistical Office (DESTATIS)

E 21 "Business indices, seasonal adjustment"

Statistisches Bundesamt

Gustav-Stresemann-Ring 11

65180 Wiesbaden, Germany

This indicator is part of the overall STS indicator system which supports business cycle observation. The industrial production index aims to measure changes in the volume of industrial output at monthly intervals. It is a reference indicator for economic development and is used in particular to identify turning points in the economic development at an early stage.

NACE Rev. 2.

All size classes in Sections B to D of NACE Rev. 2 are covered.

Production is observed on the basis of quantity and value. The terms ‘production’ or ‘output’ in the sense of business cycle statistics exclude inputs from other units. The objective of the production index is therefore to measure changes in the volume of value added. Data on the change in value added are usually not available on a monthly basis. Therefore, value added is calculated for the base period only. The monthly continuation of value added in the base period is done by suitable proxy values.

Local unit and local-kind-of-activity unit.

Production activities of Sections B to D of NACE Rev. 2 according to the business register.

Country as a whole.

Since 1952.

2015 = 100.

Index. The exact unit of measure depends on the choice of proxy variables working hour, turnover, value or quantity.

Month.

Till 2022: The laws regulating the collection, treatment and dissemination of statistical data are the Council Regulation (EC) No 1165/98 of 19 May 1998 concerning short-term statistics. 

From 2022 onwards: Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics of 27 November 2019, repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistics (EBS-Regulation).

Commission Implementing Regulation 2020/1197 laying down technical specifications and arrangements pursuant to Regulation (EU) 2019/2152 of the European Parliament and of the Council on European business statistics repealing 10 legal acts in the field of business statistic (General Implementing Act) as well as the Federal Statistics Act (1987). Furthermore, ESS guidelines on revision policy for PEEIs and recommendations for Working-Day and  Seasonal Adjustment in Short-Term Statistics are applied.

The FSO and the German Central Bank cooperate closely on the seasonal adjustment of the production index. Data sent to Eurostat may contain confidential data to compile the European aggregate.

Confidentiality is guaranteed by section 16 of the Federal Statistics Act. It requires that respondents must be informed about their rights and obligations in providing statistical information. This rule is strictly followed. It also applies to the notification that individual data are only used for statistical purposes and - subject to protection procedures - for scientific purposes.

Furthermore, Chapter V “Statistical Confidentiality” of the REGULATION (EC) No 223/2009 of the European Parliament and of the Council applies.

As regards the confidentiality of data, methods of primary and secondary confidentiality checking have been developed and are being used.

A release calendar containing the precise release dates for the reference periods in the following twelve months is published on the website of destatis.

https://www.destatis.de/SiteGlobals/Forms/Suche/Termine/EN/Terminsuche_Formular.html?nn=43216

Indices are simultaneously released to all parties. The data are available at the database “GENESIS-Online” for all users at the same time.

Identification of internal government access to data before release in accordance with Principle 6.7 of the European Statistics Code of Practice: The Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action and the German Central Bank are provided with an embargo copy of the data at 2 pm on the day before the official release in order to prepare their own comments.

Data are transmitted monthly to Eurostat on the same day as the national figures are published.

Monthly.

Press releases are published by the FSO:

https://www.destatis.de/SiteGlobals/Forms/Suche/Presse/EN/Pressesuche_Formular.html;jsessionid=24B1C2158B976A484E29DA16C75B4D09.internet8731?nn=43216

In the press release comments are provided on seasonally adjusted figures (month-on-month rate of change) and the working-day adjusted figures (rate of change to the same month of the previous year). In addition, figures on MIGS are presented.

Not available.

Indices are also published at the time series database “GENESIS-Online”

https://www-genesis.destatis.de/genesis/online/data?operation=sprachwechsel&language=en

All data are available on the Genesis database at the 4-digit level of NACE. The presentation of the data is in gross, working day adjusted (X13 ARIMA), seasonally adjusted (X13 ARIMA and Berliner Verfahren) and trend (Berliner Verfahren) figures.

Not available.

Data are transmitted to Eurostat and used in European aggregates and/or are published as national indices.

A paper with an analysis on the production of energy intensive NACE-Sections in “Wirtschaft und Statistik Heft 2/2023:  Lukas Vogel et al. :Berechnung und Entwicklung des neuen Produktionsindex für energieintensive Industriezweige".

A paper dealing with the changes of the base year is published in “Wirtschaft und Statistik Heft 3/2013: Christiane Bald-Herbel: Umstellung der Konjunkturindizes im Produzierenden Gewerbe auf Basis 2010”.

A description of the seasonal adjustment method is published in ”Wirtschaft und Statistik Heft 4/2018: Linz, S., Fries, C., Völker, J.: Seasonal adjustment of short-term statistics using X-12-ARIMA and X13 in JDemetra+“.

A detailed analysis concerning the revision policy for this indicator is published in “Wirtschaft und Statistik Heft 9/2003: Sandra Jung: Revisionsanalysis des deutschen Produktionsindex”.

Standardized quality reports are published on the website of destatis

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Methods/Quality/_node.html

The data of German official statistics enjoy a reputation of high reliability in Germany and abroad. Destatis has committed itself to assure and further enhance the level of quality already attained. In order to achieve this task – also in the ESS – the activities of destatis are based on quality guidelines. To assure quality in the long term, destatis applies a variety of systematic quality assurance measures, among others the European Statistics Code of Practice.

Detailed descriptions can be found here:

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Methods/Quality/_node.html

The quality of the indicator is satisfactory. The monthly survey is conducted in a decentralized manner. The statistical offices of the Länder are responsible for collecting, checking and processing the respective Länder data. The Federal Statistical Office is entrusted with methodological preparations and the development of the statistics, and it collates the Länder results in order to produce and publish federal results as well as to calculate indices.

Due to its periodicity, its rapid availability and detailed breakdown by branches of economic activity, this indicator is a central indicator of the development of business activity. Therefore, it is significant to various national users. These are the Federal Government, more specifically the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy and the Federal Ministry of Finance, the German Central Bank, the German Council of Economic Experts, economic research institutes, universities, trade associations, the media and also the interested public.

Destatis conducts user satisfaction surveys in various sectors of statistics. The Statistical Advisory Committee (Statistischer Beirat) represents the interests of the users of federal statistics and regularly consults with destatis.

Additionally, user satisfaction is measured by the number of monthly visits on specialized publications on the website of destatis and the respective number of printed products sold or downloads, quarterly downloads from the on-line database “GENESIS”, downloads of the Statistical Yearbook sorted by chapters and the number of external queries via the costumer management system.

STS requirements according to EU regulations and national laws are fulfilled.

There is the trade-off between accuracy and timeliness. Therefore, the monthly production indices are provisional. Still, they comprise just fewer than 10% of estimated data.

Errors may occur from incorrect reports of the enterprises, human errors during the data editing process, imputation errors.

Not relevant since the monthly production survey - the main data base for the calculation of the production index - is a census of local units with 50 persons or more employed. At the national level, the total number of local units reporting every month accounts for approximately 80% of the value of German industrial production.

The size-weighted unit-non-response is 9.6% on average for 2022 for the first preliminary results. The unit response reaches 95% after the first revision and almost 100% after the quarterly revision. The response is obligatory. Otherwise, fines can be imposed up to EUR 5,000.

Preliminary results are published 38 days after the end of the reference month.

All publication deadlines are met.

Consistent time series of the recent base year are available since 1991 since Germany is covered as a whole.

Consistent time series of the recent base year are available since 1991. Time series prior to 1991 refer to the former territory of the Federal Republic of Germany.

There are no breaks in the time series.

The data are coordinated with the calculation of the national accounts. The production index is needed for the estimation of the quarterly GDP.

The index formula (Laspeyres, rebasing every five years) is used for each indicator in “industry”. Thus, the base year and the index reference period coincide. Furthermore, all indices use the same classification framework and are consistent with the definitions, scope, classifications, and timing of recording as required by the STS-Regulation.

The components are coherent with all aggregates. This is valid for the raw data. The aggregates of working day adjusted data and seasonal adjusted data are coherent with the MIGs. The time series of the MIGs and NACE 2-digit sectors are directly working day adjusted and seasonally adjusted.

It is not possible to determine the costs and loads for the production index separately. The cost and burden of all STS- indicators in total were transmitted to Eurostat.

The International Standard Cost Model will be used to measure administrative costs by the FSO.

The general revision policy adopted by destatis covers routine revisions, major revisions and non-scheduled revisions.

The national revision policy is the same as for Eurostat data.

https://www.destatis.de/EN/Methods/Quality/GeneralRevisionsPolicy.html

Information on tracking vintages are given on the website of the German Central  Bank:

https://www.bundesbank.de/dynamic/action/en/statistics/time-series-databases/time-series-databases/745590/real-time-data?statisticType=BBK_RTD&treeId=113205500

Data revision follows the revision policy mentioned above.

Routine revisions result in revised production indices which are published in the following month (i.e. after four weeks), together with the preliminary indices for this month. The revised indices take into account subsequently received production data and possible corrections. A final index calculation in regard to the annual correction is made after the completion of the 4th quarter of the reporting period. For unadjusted data MR=0.2 and MAR=0.6, for seasonal adjusted data MR=0.2 and MAR=0.4.

Note: The revision analysis was conducted based on unadjusted data since calender adjusted data on tracking vintages are no longer available on the Website of the German Central Bank.

The last major revision was conducted in 2018 in the context of the new base year 2015. In the case of regular index rebases, the results and changes in the calculation methodology are presented in detail in the FSO monthly journal “Wirtschaft und   Statistik”.

Publication errors are corrected in accordance with the general FSO policy on non-scheduled revisions which deals with publication errors.

The data are based on a statistical survey. The coverage of the survey is updated yearly.

The frame on which the source is based is the national business register. The total population involves 207,465 enterprises which spread over Section B (1,902), C (203,664) and D (1,899).

The monthly production survey is a cut-off survey and exhaustive for all local units with 50 or more employees if their principal activity (value added, alternatively: number of employees) is located in “Production Industry”. 22,631 local units were surveyed with approximately 86% of value added in reporting year 2013.

Data for the calculation of production indices are collected monthly and quarterly.

The data collection is conducted by web-questionnaires, which are sent and collected by the statistical offices of the Länder. Missing responses are requested by telephone contacts or reminders are sent.

One questionnaire for each local unit only covers production data (i.e. quantity for sale, quantity for further processing and value for sale).

Data are checked by the statistical offices of the Länder before they are transmitted to the FSO.

Plausibility checks are jointly determined by the FSO and the statistical offices of the Länder. They are carried out on the results (i.e. comparison at the level of each time series, calculation of changes in figures compared with the previous year/month) while a review of data quality has already been conducted during the process of index calculation.

Estimates for non-response are based on values of the preceding month which are still contained in the current statistical data reported. Basically, they are replaced by the rate of change of data received within the deadlines, which is then included in the index calculation.

Production indices are calculated according to a Laspeyres formula.

The weighting scheme is based on gross value added at factor costs taken from the annual structure survey (SBS) at aggregated level, gross production values at product level.

For seasonal adjustment, version 2.2 of the JDemetra+ software is used. It is recommended for seasonal adjustment within the European Statistical System and the European System of Central Banks. The underlying mathematical-statistical method does not differ fundamentally from the previous X-12-ARIMA procedure.

The first stage of the procedure is RegARIMA modelling; unadjusted values at the ends are extended by estimates and, where required, adjusted for outliers. Extending the time series by estimates is required, for instance, for the second stage of the procedure, where centred moving averages are calculated. Seasonal adjustment as such is carried out in the second stage of the procedure. It is an iterative process for smoothing the unadjusted data by means of trend and seasonal filters which are calculated from centred weighted moving averages. The seasonal factors of a specific month are obtained by smoothing the deviations of the unadjusted values from the trend values of that month. The trend values, in turn, are smoothed unadjusted values.

There may also be calendar adjustment in the first stage. For that purpose, the number of working days in the current month is determined after deducting holidays; the result is compared with the long-term average of that period. Public holidays that are relevant only in some Länder are weighted using the number of employees in those Länder as a proportion of the total number of employees in Germany. The percentage effect of an additional working or trading day on the unadjusted value is estimated from past values of the relevant set of statistics under RegARIMA modelling. These estimates are used to eliminate the impact of variations in the number of working days in the respective month or quarter from the unadjusted data. The effects of bridging days (days between a public holiday and a weekend), movable school holidays and the weather are not taken into account.

Results based on the calendar and seasonal adjustment procedure BV4.1 and trend results according to BV4.1 are published in addition to the results adjusted for calendar and seasonal effects using the X13 JD+ procedure.

software used and version: Calendar and seasonal adjustment based on X13 in JDemetra+ 2.2

model/filter selection: manual

times the models and the respective parameters are re-estimated: monthly

horizon of revisions: revisions are completed after the yearly correction. The time series is calculated backwards up to 2015.

seasonal adjustment decomposition: The underlying model for the seasonal decomposition is multiplicative and only for a few selected time series additive.

ARIMA-Model: mostly “airline” model (0 1 1)(0 1 1)

critical value for outlier detection: 4

filter length: the Filter lengths (Henderson and seasonal filter) are user defined with the value 17 and 3X9, respectively

date of seasonal breaks in the series: There are no breaks in the time series.

indirect adjustment via components: The production volume index for Germany is indirectly adjusted via its components, which are directly adjusted.

residual seasonality: The residual seasonality is checked on a yearly basis for the industrial main groups.

aggregation: the industrial production index is calculated from the two-digit NACE positions. consistency amongst the different levels of breakdown: The consistency is checked regularly on a yearly basis. Deviations are moderate but can vary.

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