The Bundesbank has been collecting annual statistics on foreign direct investment stocks (DI) in accordance with the provisions of the Foreign Trade and Payments Regulation (Außenwirtschaftsverordnung) since 1976 and publishes aggregated results in the Bundesbank's Statistical Series “Direct investment statistics”.

For several years, the importance of the database for research purposes has been growing in view of the progressive globalisation of the German economy. An active research network of Bundesbank and non-Bundesbank experts has become established, which analyses and publishes research on key issues connected with direct investment.

This research is based mainly on the “Microdatabase Direct Investment” (MiDi). This database contains anonymised individual reports from 1999 onwards and is available as a panel data set.