Comparability

Comparability - geographical

The statistics is carried out in collaboration with the EU-commission, and the same survey is carried out in other EU-countries. Please refer to (DG ECFIN).

Comparability over time

The individual indicators are comparable over time, however taking the following changes into consideration.

The survey was established in 4th quarter of 1963 based on a method basically developed by the IFO Institute in Munich. In 1980 the survey was adapted to the questions in the existing EC harmonised surveys. Up until 1997 there has been a continuos adaptation to new questions requested by the EC/EU. From 1998 the survey is completely harmonised with the surveys in other EU Member States through a change from quarterly to monthly frequency. In relation to the reorganisation of the survey from quarterly to monthly frequency the size of the sample was cut from around 800 to around 500 enterprises and consequently results from then on presented at somewhat more aggregate levels of the activity classification DB93. At the revised levels of DB93 statistics have been calculated back to 1. Quarter 1990. As from January 2009 the survey is published with the activity classification DB07.

As of Q2 2013 the questionnaire is re-designed, implying drop in responses "no limitations" and increase in responses on various other limitations; To what extend the drop from 1st to 2nd quarter 2013 is caused by the re-design cannot be determined, since also general cyclical movements influence the drop.

As of July 2014 (3rd quarter) some phrasings in the questionnaire have been revised in order to harmonize fully to the guidelines of DG ECFIN. Previous, questions of this type: "Regarding Production, how was the development the last 3 month (e.g. May-July) as compared to the previous 3 month (e.g. February-April)? please tick either less; unchanged or bigger". Now there are no comparison between two 3-month periods, and instead is asked: "How has your production developed over the past 3 month? please tick either decreased, unchanged or increased" The results are believed to be the same, and no data break has been detected. The same change has been made for questions concerning the future development over the next 3 month. No data break is detected.

Furthermore the answer options regarding Current stock (of raw material and finished products) has been changed from less; unchanged or bigger to too small; adequate or too large. Furthermore answer options to questions on stock of orders has been changed from less; unchanged or bigger to not sufficient, sufficient or more than sufficient. Here data break has occurred to some extend.

Previously for the investment plans survey the questions were regarding percent change in investments. As of October 2021 the investment plans are now included in the tendency survey and the previous figures have been backcasted in the new tables. The fraction with a percent increase above 0 has been translated to increasing in the new format and the fraction with a percent decrease below 0 has been translated to decreasing. So the remaining ones stating exactly 0 percent change in investments are now remain unchanged. This make it very difficult to compare figures from before 2021 with those after 2020. The old tables are still to be found in the archive under Investment survey for manufacturing industry.

Coherence - cross domain

The Industry Tendency Survey is a supplement to other short-term statistics. Moreover the survey is comparable with the other Business Tendency Surveys covering Retail trade, Construction and Services.

Weighted together with tendency indicators from the construction survey, services survey, retail trade survey and consumer survey the industry indicators forms the "Tillidsindikator" similar to the Economic Sentiment Indicator published by the EU commission. Also the "Erhvervstillidsindikator" (business sentiment indicator) consisting only of indicators form the businesses is calculated. The figures are published in the Statbank. The EU is describing the methodology here in user guide.

Coherence - internal

The data set to the survey is consistent.