The major focus of this paper is to determine whether the accuracy of German macroeconomic forecasts has improved over time. We examine 1-year-ahead forecasts of real GDP and inflation for 1967 to 2001 made by three major German forecasting groups and the OECD. We examine the accuracy of the...

This paper presents a recently developed approach for evaluating economic forecasts. Previously, univariate methods were used to evaluate the forecasts of individual variables. However, many macroeconomic variables are forecast at the same time to describe the state of the economy. It is,...

The major focus of this paper is to determine whether the accuracy of German macroeconomic forecasts has improved over time. We examine 1-year-ahead forecasts of real GDP and inflation for 1967 to 2001 made by three major German forecasting groups and the OECD. We examine the accuracy of the...

Good information is required for policy analysis and forecasting. This paper reviews the broad range of information problems that face an analyst or forecaster. Two distinct situations are considered: (1) the need to explain the current structure of an economic sector, and (2) the requirement to...