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East Germany

The Nasty Gap 30 years after unification: Why East Germany is still 20% poorer than the West Dossier In a nutshell The East German economic convergence process is hardly…

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The Network

About IWH CompNet The Competitiveness Research Network (CompNet) is a leading European research initiative dedicated to advancing the understanding of competitiveness and…

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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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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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Job Market Candidates

Job Market Candidates Marius Fourné Marius Fourné is a PhD candidate in Economics at the Halle Institute for Economic Research (IWH) and Martin Luther University of…

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Step by Step ‒ A Quarterly Evaluation of EU Commission's GDP Forecasts

Katja Heinisch
IWH Discussion Papers, No. 22, 2024
published in: Journal of Forecasting
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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Department Profiles

Research Profiles of the IWH Departments All doctoral students are allocated to one of the four research departments (Financial Markets – Laws, Regulations and Factor Markets –…

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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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Past Events

Past Events 14. CompNet Annual Conference (Vilnius, 25-26 September 2025) The 14th CompNet Annual Conference, co-hosted with the Bank of Lithuania, took place on 25–26 September…

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CompNet & ECB Annual Conference

CompNet & ECB Annual Conference On 22 September 2020, a short online event took place. Please find all material below to be downloaded from the online conference. The coronavirus…

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