Abstract
The leading economic research institutes have raised their forecast for growth in German economic output in the current year to 0.3%. In the fall of 2022, they were still expecting a decline of 0.4%. The economic setback in the winter half-year 2022/2023 is likely to have been less severe than feared in the fall. The main reason for this is a smaller loss of purchasing power as a result of a significant drop in energy prices. Nevertheless, the rate of inflation will fall only slowly from 6.9% last year to 6.0% this year.