Brexit Vote Dampens Economic Expectations

In July, the ZEW-CS Indicator for the economic sentiment in Switzerland has fallen by 13.5 points to a reading of 5.9 points. The Brexit vote is likely to be partly responsible for the decline in Swiss economic sentiment. The ZEW-CS Indicator, however, remains in the positive. The share of financial experts expecting the economic situation to improve still outweighs the share of surveyed experts expecting a decline in the economic situation. The ZEW-CS Indicator reflects the expectations of the surveyed financial market experts regarding the economic development in Switzerland on a six-month time horizon. It is calculated monthly by the Mannheim Centre for European Economic Research (ZEW) in cooperation with Credit Suisse (CS), Zurich.

The assessment of the current economic situation in Switzerland declined by 6.2 points in July, to a reading of exactly 0.0 points. The vast majority of financial experts – almost 90 per cent – considers the economic situation to be "normal". There is, however, some uncertainty regarding the economic outlook. Approximately two thirds of experts expect the situation to remain unchanged. The fact that the ZEW-CS-Indicator is slightly in the positive indicates that there are slightly more optimists than pessimists among the respondents.

Detailed Results

More detailed results – including survey participants' assessment of developments in other countries – can be found in this month's edition of the "Switzerland Financial market report".

For more information please contact

Markus Teske (ZEW), Phone +49 (0)621/1235-372, E-mail teske@zew.de

Lukas Gehrig (Credit Suisse), Phone +41 44 333 52 07, E-mail lukas.gehrig@credit-suisse.com