Uncertainty is inherent to forecasting and assessing the uncertainty surrounding a point forecast is as important as the forecast itself. Following Cornec (2010), a method to assess the uncertainty around the indicator models used at OECD to forecast GDP growth of the six largest member...

This paper extends the OECD Economics Department’s suite of short-term indicator models for quarterly GDP growth, which currently cover only the G7 countries, to the BRIICS countries. Reflecting the relative scarcity of high-quality macroeconomic time series, the paper adopts a small-scale...

With the advent of advanced data collection techniques, there is an increased interest in using econometric models to support decisions in marketing. Due to the sometimes specific nature of variables in marketing, the discipline uses econometric models that are rarely, if ever, used elsewhere....

In this chapter we provide a guide for the construction, use and evaluation of leading indicators, and an assessment of the most relevant recent developments in this field of economic forecasting. To begin with, we analyze the problem of indicator selection, choice of filtering methods, business...

When forecasts of the future value of some variable, or the probability of some event, are used for purposes of ex ante planning or decision making, then the preferences, opportunities and constraints of the decision maker will all enter into the ex post evaluation of a forecast, and the ex post...

This paper describes the OECD’s new small global forecasting model for the three main OECD economic regions: the United States, the euro area, and Japan. The key variables – which include output, inflation, the trade balance, and import prices – are driven by monetary and fiscal policy,...

This paper reviews the main monthly indicators that could help forecasting world trade and compares different type of forecasting models using these indicators. In particular it develops dynamic factor models (DFM) which have the advantage of handling larger datasets of information than bridge...