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 …

short-term interest rate, stock returns or corporate bond spreads. The forecasting performance is very good for the United …