21 May 2025 – Today marks the launch of Tara-ā-Umanga Business Expectations Survey (BES), with our publication of results for the June quarter (Table M15). BES is a quarterly release that will be published ahead of each Monetary Policy Statement.
The initial publication includes our Stats Insight, a background note as a guide to interpret the new survey results, and a description of our survey methodology.
BES includes several hundred businesses from different sectors around the country, from small to large firms. It is separate from the existing Survey of Expectations focusing on expert forecasters, economists and industry leaders (Table M14, from 1987 onwards), which will continue.
The sample size and design enable new breakdowns by business size and industry, which are published in the data file accompanying Table M15. To facilitate the publication of detailed results by business size and industry, along with common measures of statistical uncertainty, we are using a new file format for the M15 data file. This intentionally differs from the file format of our other statistical releases. A description of the variables published in the M15 data file is available in the background notes to this release.
Background information
Inflation expectations are important because households and businesses reflect their expectations in their price- and wage-setting decisions. Improving the quality of our expectation surveys is part of the wider response to our 2022 review of how we formulate and implement our monetary policy. In this review, we identified several areas where better data could support high quality monetary policy decision-making.
For further information please see: Tara-ā-Umanga Business Expectations Survey: Survey design and development: https://govt.us20.list-manage.com/track/click?u=bd316aa7ee4f5679c56377819&id=ce329fb983&e=f3c68946f8
