An essential element of the work of the Fund is to monitor and forecast international trade. This paper uses SWIFT … (PMI), to improve the short-term forecast of international trade. A horse race between linear regressions and machine …-learning algorithms for the world and 40 large economies shows that forecasts based on linear regressions often outperform those based on …

documents of the following years to understand the evolution of fiscal forecast errors. Our findings suggest that: (i) for most … terms of drivers, we show that forecast errors for the fiscal balance-to-GDP ratio are positively correlated with GDP growth … and terms of trade changes and negatively with GDP deflator surprises; (iv) forecast errors for public debt-to-GDP ratios …

contributors to overall inflation forecast errors. Perhaps more importantly, relatively small core inflation forecast errors appear …