A REVIEW OF EU BUSINESS SURVEYS METHODOLOGY AND THE CROATIAN EXPERIENCE

Business surveys (B-S) are qualitative economic surveys designed to deal with judgments and expectations of economic agents and consumers. They are a necessary complement to the quantitative statistical surveys. Information from business and consumer surveys serve as a subset of information set important for evaluation of the state of business climate and activities, economic trends and forecasting. There is a harmonized EU methodology which apply EU member countries and candidate countries, but differences exist in applied sample designs and methods of sample selection, treatment of non responses, seasonal adjustment methods etc. The surveys are conducted by various organisations: statistical institutes, statistical bureau offices, specialised firms, national banks. In this paper comparatively and detailed are presented the main methodological characteristics of B-S of EU member countries and candidate countries. B-S is carried out in Croatia from 1995. The applied methodology of Croatian B-S is highly harmonised with those of EU methodology. There is the problem of relatively high no-response rate. It is necessary to make some questionnaire revisions. Monthly based surveys should be introduced as well as the investment test. In order to improve the Croatian B-S it is necessary to ensure the organisational and financial stability of conducting the surveys.