| Based primarily on the Business Test of the IFO Institut fur Wirtschaftsforschung, Munich, the QSBO is a tendency survey with questions on a range of economic indicators. Questions in the QSBO generally ask whether business conditions will deteriorate, stay the same, or improve, and yield information about business trends much faster than official statistics. Methodology; Each quarter a panel of around 1400 chief executives or their nominees in the three main sectors manufacturing and building, merchants, and services are asked to respond. The sample is of enterprises selected from the business directory of Statistics New Zealand and the UBD New Zealand Business Directory. The selection of firms in the panel is based on the number of employees, divided into several class intervals. The number sampled in each of the three major sectors is proportional to the sector's employment. The net percent of respondents is obtained by subtracting the percentage of respondents saying down from those saying up and dividing the value by a corrective factor (100-percent of N/A responses). That is: ((up-down)/(100-NA))* 100=net percent. |