Evaluation methodologies for rare events from meteorology, psychology and medical diagnosis are used to examine the value of probabilistic forecasts of real GDP declines during the current quarter (Q0) and each of the next four quarters (Q1–Q4) using data from the Survey of Professional...

The joint subjective probabilities for negative GDP growth during two consecutive quarters obtained from the Survey of Professional Forecasters (SPF) are evaluated as predictors of cyclical downturns in the economy using the prequential approach of Dawid (1984) and the skill score decomposition...