Alumni
IWH Alumni The IWH maintains contact with its former employees worldwide. We involve our alumni in our work and keep them informed, for example, with a newsletter. We also plan…
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IWH-CompNet 5th FINPRO
IWH-CompNet 5th Finance and Productivity Conference 24-25 April, 2026 - Tokyo, Japan The IWH-CompNet 5th Finance and Productivity Conference (FINPRO5), held on 24–25 April 2026 at…
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Lecturers
Lecturers Lars Börner Professor of Economics at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg. Website Kamila Cygan-Rehm Professor of Quantitative Methods, esp. Econometrics at the…
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Wirtschaft im Wandel
Wirtschaft im Wandel Die Zeitschrift „Wirtschaft im Wandel“ unterrichtet die breite Öffentlichkeit über aktuelle Themen der Wirtschaftsforschung. Sie stellt wirtschaftspolitisch…
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10th Vintage
The CompNet 10th Vintage Dataset 10th Vintage dataset is now available! The CompNet dataset provides a comprehensive set of micro-aggregated indicators, specifically designed to…
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Alumni
Alumni IWH provides guidance and support in job placement after graduation, including letters of recommendation and career advice. Graduates have found placements in academia…
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Research Clusters
Three Research Clusters Each IWH research group is assigned to a topic-oriented research cluster. The clusters are not separate organisational units, but rather bundle the…
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Step by Step ‒ A Quarterly Evaluation of EU Commission's GDP Forecasts
Katja Heinisch
Journal of Forecasting,
Vol. 44 (3),
2025
Abstract
The European Commission’s growth forecasts play a crucial role in shaping policies and provide a benchmark for many (national) forecasters. The annual forecasts are built on quarterly estimates, which do not receive much attention and are hardly known. Therefore, this paper provides a comprehensive analysis of multi-period ahead quarterly GDP growth forecasts for the European Union (EU), euro area, and several EU member states with respect to first-release and current-release data. Forecast revisions and forecast errors are analyzed, and the results show that the forecasts are not systematically biased. However, GDP forecasts for several member states tend to be overestimated at short-time horizons. Furthermore, the final forecast revision in the current quarter is generally downward biased for almost all countries. Overall, the differences in mean forecast errors are minor when using real-time data or pseudo-real-time data and these differences do not significantly impact the overall assessment of the forecasts’ quality. Additionally, the forecast performance varies across countries, with smaller countries and Central and Eastern European countries (CEECs) experiencing larger forecast errors. The paper provides evidence that there is still potential for improvement in forecasting techniques both for nowcasts but also forecasts up to eight quarters ahead. In the latter case, the performance of the mean forecast tends to be superior for many countries.
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Research Articles
Research Articles Explore cutting-edge research based on CompNet’s micro-aggregated firm-level data and related analytical tools. These articles cover empirical and theoretical…
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Kehrt das Inflationsgespenst zurück? – ein Kommentar
Reint E. Gropp
Wirtschaft im Wandel,
No. 1,
2025
Abstract
Zur Erinnerung: Nach Jahren von Inflationsraten nahe null war die Inflationsrate in Deutschland 2022 nach der Corona-Pandemie und dem Überfall Russlands auf die Ukraine auf knapp 7% gestiegen, ähnlich hoch wie zur Energiekrise 1973/74. Die Gründe dafür sind bekannt: expansive Geld- und Finanzpolitik sowie steigende Energiepreise und Nachholeffekte beim Konsum, verbunden mit Lieferkettenproblemen gerade im Handel mit China. Seitdem haben Zentralbanken wie die EZB eine weiche Landung hingelegt. Ohne große Verluste beim Wachstum (zumindest global gesehen) wurde die Inflationsrate auf 1,6% im September 2024 gedrückt. Ein großer Erfolg?
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