The IFO Institute is a service-based research organization with a three-fold orientation: to conduct economic research, to offer advice to economic policy-makers and to provide services for the research and business communities.
The IFO Institute is an economic think-tank that generates ideas for the business and public sectors. With its commitment towards providing economic-policy advice, the Institute promotes discussion on necessary reforms to help governments adapt for the future. By empirically investigating economic issues, by providing analyses and forecasts and by developing economic scenarios and models, it informs decision-makers in business, society and politics, calls attention to new developments, and provides material on which economic-policy decisions can be based. In international consultancy projects, e.g. from the EU or the UN, the IFO Institute provides its expertise to public agencies, especially those in countries outside the OECD.
In its research, the Institute concentrates on areas that are particularly relevant for policy makers, and consequently research activities in Public Finance and Social Policies and the Labor Market have been expanded. Research also focuses on Economic Forecasts and Financial Markets, Structural Change and Industries and Environment, Regional Economics and Transportation.
For an on-site, intensive investigation of questions arising from the integration of east and west Germany, a branch of the ifo Institute was opened in Dresden in 1993.