The "Gemeinschaftsdiagnose" [Joint Diagnosis (JD)] is the most influential semi-annual macroeconomic forecast in Germany. Jointly produced by up to six institutes, its accuracy as well as the large number of involved participants is often criticised. This study examines the JD’s growth and...

In periods of unusual weather, forecasters face a problem of interpreting economic data: Which part goes back to the underlying economic trend and which part arises from a special weather effect? In this paper, we discuss ways to disentangle weather-related from business cycle-related influences...

In this paper, I apply univariate and vector autoregressive (VAR) models to forecast inflation in Vietnam. To investigate the forecasting performance of the models, two naive benchmark models (one is a variant of a random walk and the other is an autoregressive model) are first built based on...

Since the dawn of the concept of nation-states, many nations have been planning their economies to increase people's prosperity and standard of living. All economies have a centralised feature where decisions are taken. But data collection and plan implementation has been cumbersome because of...

We provide key insights on expectation formation based on the Bloomberg economic survey: around two thirds of professional forecasters provide GDP forecasts that are temporally consistent, meaning that quarterly forecasts add up to the annual. Temporally consistent forecasts are not more...

This paper investigates the macroeconomic projections of the German government since the 1970s and compares it those of the Joint Economic Forecast, which is an in-dependent forecasting institution in Germany. Our results indicate that nominal GDP projections are upward biased for longer...

Notwithstanding a resurgence in research on out-of-sample forecasts of the price of oil in recent years, there is one important approach to forecasting the real price of oil which has not been studied systematically to date. This approach is based on the premise that demand for crude oil derives...

The interest rate assumptions for macroeconomic forecasts differ considerably among central banks. Common approaches are given by the assumption of constant interest rates, interest rates expected by market participants, or the central bank's own interest rate expectations. From a theoretical...

This paper introduces a complement statistical test for distinguishing between the predictive accuracy of two sets of forecasts. We propose a non-parametric test founded upon the principles of the Kolmogorov-Smirnov (KS) test, referred to as the KS Predictive Accuracy (KSPA) test. The KSPA test...

Our main goal in this paper is to evaluate the point forecasting accuracy of several time series econometric models when applied to a small Spanish region. The variable of interest is the sectoral GVA of the Basque Country. The results support the use of causal models, which outperform...