Surveys

The ECB Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) is a quarterly survey of expectations for the rates of inflation, real GDP growth and unemployment in the euro area for several horizons, together with a quantitative assessment of the uncertainty surrounding them. The participants are experts affiliated with financial or non-financial institutions based within the European Union. As of 2015 the results are reported in a standalone web publication on a quarterly basis (i.e. in February, May, August and November) on the dedicated  SPF webpage .

The survey covers micro (1 to 9 employees), small (10 to 49 employees), medium-sized (50 to 249 employees) and large firms (250 or more employees) and it provides evidence on the financing conditions faced by SMEs compared with those of large firms during the past six months. In addition to a breakdown into firm size classes, it provides evidence across branches of economic activity, euro area countries, firm age, financial autonomy of the firms, and ownership of the firms. Part of the survey is run by the ECB every six months to assess the latest developments of the financing conditions of firms in the euro area. The more comprehensive survey, run together with the European Commission, was initially conducted every two years, i.e. in 2009H1, 2011H1 and 2013H1. As from the wave 2014H1, the extended survey is run on the annual basis.

Securities issues statistics (SEC) are produced by the ECB based on monthly data reported by the national central banks of the euro area. They cover data on outstanding amounts, issuances, redemptions and growth rates of debt securities and listed shares. All these data are broken down by issuer country and sector, instrument type, original maturity, coupon type and currency of denomination. The SEC data are published in a monthly statistical release six weeks after the end of the reference month. The annual Financial Markets Survey (FMS) collects basic data on outstanding amounts and issuances of debt securities and market capitalisation of listed shares for non-euro area EU countries. The SEC data set has been replaced by the CSEC data set as of June 2022.

The main objective of the survey is to enhance the Eurosystem"s knowledge of bank lending conditions in the euro area. The BLS provides input for the ECB Governing Council"s assessment of monetary and economic developments, on which it bases its monetary policy decisions. It provides information on the lending policies of euro area banks and complements existing statistics on loans and bank lending rates with information on loan supply and demand for enterprises and households. The survey addresses issues such as credit standards for approving loans, as well as credit terms and conditions applied to new loans to enterprises and households. It also asks for an assessment of loan demand. The survey is addressed to senior loan officers of a representative sample of euro area banks and is conducted four times a year. The sample group participating in the survey comprises banks from all euro area countries and takes into account the characteristics of their respective national banking structures. For more information, please refer to the ECB website.

Opinion survey data provide timely evidence of perceptions and expectations to economic conditions. Questionnaires from qualitative opinion surveys consist of a small set of questions, asking the respondent to indicate whether an economic condition (e.g. assessment of the current business situation) has improved, has remained unchanged or has deteriorated when compared with the previous situation. Business opinion surveys are conducted in different areas of economic activity (manufacturing, construction, services, retail trade) and are addressed to senior executives whereas consumer opinion surveys are based on a sample of private households. Besides qualitative questions on assessments, some opinion surveys include quantitative questions as well.