Forecasting the world economy is a di¢ cult task given the complex interre-lationships within and across countries …, …rst, at ranking various forecasting methods in terms offorecast accuracy and, second, at checking whether methods … forecasting di-rectly aggregate variables (direct approaches) outperform methods based onthe aggregation of country …

use of measures of underlying in?ation to formulate monetary policy and assist in forecasting observed in?ation. Recent … disaggregated price indices for European countries. We then assess the forecasting ability of these factor estimates against other … 12 to 18 months is adopted as a valid criterion to assess forecasting. Empirical results for the ?ve largest euro area …