Capacities and Capacity Utilisation from the Ifo Business Survey - Knowledge and Background

The degree of capacity utilisation, a measure for the development of economic conditions, is one of the most widely observed results of the Ifo Business Survey. The question refers to the capacity of production facilities.1 The general definition is:

(1)

with: U = degree of capacity utilisation, queried in percent, Qr = actual production (in units, kg, DM, hours, etc.), Qp = potential production or capacity (same dimension as Qr) t = time index.