This paper introduces the OECD Weekly Tracker of economic activity for 46 OECD and G20 countries using Google Trends search data. The Tracker performs well in pseudo-real time simulations including around the COVID-19 crisis. The underlying model adds to the previous Google Trends literature in...

Many macroeconomic forecasts and forecast updates like those from IMF and OECD typically involve both a model component, which is replicable, as well as intuition, which is non-replicable. Intuition is expert knowledge possessed by a forecaster. If forecast updates are progressive, forecast...

This paper examines how the professional forecasters comprising the Blue Chip Economic Consensus view shocks to GDP. I use an unobserved components model of the forecast revisions to identify forecasters' perceptions of permanent and transitory shocks to GDP. The model indicates forecasters:...

This paper uses survey expectations data to construct empirical proxies for time-varying business-level uncertainty. Access to the micro data from the German IFO Business Climate Survey permits construction of uncertainty measures based on both ex ante disagreement and ex post forecast errors....

Untersuchungen zur Prognosegüte sollten nicht nur Prognosefehler, die auf der Schätzung der Parameter beruhen berücksichtigen, sondern auch solche, die aus der stichprobenabhängigen Auswahl des Prognosemodells resultieren. Wird die Prognosefehlervarianz durch rekursive Out-of-Sample...

This paper assesses the OECD’s projections for GDP growth and inflation during the global financial crisis and recovery, focussing on lessons that can be learned. The projections repeatedly over-estimated growth, failing to anticipate the extent of the slowdown and later the weak pace of the...

Die Gemeinschaftsdiagnose prognostiziert für 2013 eine leichte Konjunkturbelebung für die Weltwirtschaft. Die Entwicklung in Europa ist dagegen mit Unsicherheiten behaftet. Deutschland wird allerdings wohl etwas rascher wachsen als die EU im Durchschnitt. Dabei kommen die entscheidenden...