LMU-ifo Economics & Business Data Center (EBDC)

The Economics & Business Data Center (EBDC) is a combined platform for empirical research in business administration and economics of the Ludwig–Maximilian University of Munich (LMU) and the Ifo Institute and aims at opening new fields for empirical research in business administration and economics.

In this regard, the EBDC provides innovative datasets of German companies, containing both survey data of the Ifo Institute as well as external data on the financing or governance structure of companies or on their investment activity. Therefore, the tasks of the EBDC also include the procurement and administration of data sources for research and teaching, the central provision, updating and documentation of external databases, as well as the acquisition of corresponding support tools.

Beyond that, the EBDC serves as a contact and central coordinator on licensing economic firm-level datasets for LMU’s Munich School of Management and LMU’s Department of Economics and supports researchers and guests of the LMU and the Ifo Institute on site. In the future, it will also conduct academic conferences on research with company data.

The Economics and Business Data Center is supported by the Exzellenzinitiative of the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (within the “LMUExcellent” program) and was founded in 2008. In spring 2011 it received accreditation as a research data centre of the Rat für Sozial- und Wirtschaftsdaten.