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Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich On the Robustness of the Balance Statistics with respect to Nonresponse Christian Seiler Ifo Working Paper No. 126 March 2012 An electronic version of the paper may be downloaded from the Ifo website www.cesifo-group.de. Ifo Working Paper No.126 On the Robustness of the Balance Statistics with respect to Nonresponse Abstract Business cycle indicators based on the balance statistics are a widely used method to monitor the actual economic situation. In contrast to official data, indicators from business surveys are early available and typically not revised after their first publication. But as surveys can be in general affected by distortions through the response behaviour, these indicators can also be biased. In addition, time-dependent nonresponse patterns can produce even more complex forms of biased results. This paper examines a framework which kind of nonresponse patterns lead to biases and decreases in performance. We perform an extensive Monte Carlo study to analyse their effects on the indicators. Our analyses show that these indicators are extremely stable towards selection biases. JEL Code: C81, C83. Keywords: Business survey, Monte Carlo study, nonresponse. Christian Seiler Ifo Institute – Leibniz Institute for Economic Research at the University of Munich