Macroeconomic risk assessments play an important role in the forecasts of many institutions. However, to the best of our knowledge their performance has not been investigated yet. In this work, we study the Bank of England?s risk forecasts for inflation. We find that these forecasts do not...

Surveying the forecasting practice of several central banks, we find that all these banks issue statements about risks to their macroeconomic forecasts. Often the balance of these risks is assessed as well. Upward [downward] risks to the forecast commonly imply that the outturn is expected to...