We suggest an alternative use of disaggregate information to forecast the aggregate variable of interest, that is to … findings and analyse why forecasting the aggregate using information on its disaggregate components improves forecast accuracy … of the aggregate forecast of euro area and US inflation in some situations, but not in others …

output gap estimates and forecast horizons, the results point clearly to a lack of any usefulness of real-time output gap … forecast real GDP growth, particularly in the short term, and some appear also useful in the medium run. No single output gap …

; Markov-switching ; Auxiliary information ; Model averaging ; Inflation forecast ; Real-time analysis …

find a higher average forecast accuracy of models that incorporate information on inflation expectations from the ECB's SPF … and Consensus Economics compared to their counterparts that do not. The gains in forecast accuracy from incorporating … households does not lead to systematic improvements in forecast performance. Individual models we consider are typically better …