Conditional Macroeconomic Survey Forecasts: Revisions and Errors
Alexander Glas, Katja Heinisch
Journal of International Money and Finance,
November
2023
Abstract
Using data from the European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters and ECB/Eurosystem staff projections, we analyze the role of ex-ante conditioning variables for macroeconomic forecasts. In particular, we test to which extent the updating and ex-post performance of predictions for inflation, real GDP growth and unemployment are related to beliefs about future oil prices, exchange rates, interest rates and wage growth. While oil price and exchange rate predictions are updated more frequently than macroeconomic forecasts, the opposite is true for interest rate and wage growth expectations. Beliefs about future inflation are closely associated with oil price expectations, whereas expected interest rates are related to predictions of output growth and unemployment. Exchange rate predictions also matter for macroeconomic forecasts, albeit less so than the other variables. With regard to forecast errors, wage growth and GDP growth closely comove, but only during the period when interest rates are at the effective zero lower bound.
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28.09.2023 • 24/2023
Gemeinschaftsdiagnose Herbst 2023: Kaufkraft kehrt zurück – Politische Unsicherheit hoch
Die Projektgruppe Gemeinschaftsdiagnose prognostiziert für das Jahr 2023 einen Rückgang des Bruttoinlands-
produkts in Deutschland um 0,6%. Damit wird die Prognose vom Frühjahr 2023 kräftig um 0,9 Prozentpunkte nach unten revidiert. „Der wichtigste Grund dafür ist, dass sich die Industrie und der private Konsum langsamer erholen, als wir im Frühjahr erwartet haben“, sagt Oliver Holtemöller, stellvertretender Präsident und Leiter der Abteilung Makroökonomik am Leibniz-Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung Halle (IWH).
Oliver Holtemöller
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Infografiken
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IWH-DPE Call for Applications – Fall 2020 Intake
Vacancy IWH-DPE Call for Applications – Fall 2020 Intake We encourage outstanding students with a master degree in economics or related fields, such as mathematics, statistics,…
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Conditional Macroeconomic Forecasts: Disagreement, Revisions and Forecast Errors
Alexander Glas, Katja Heinisch
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 7,
2021
Abstract
Using data from the European Central Bank‘s Survey of Professional Forecasters, we analyse the role of ex-ante conditioning variables for macroeconomic forecasts. In particular, we test to which extent the heterogeneity, updating and ex-post performance of predictions for inflation, real GDP growth and the unemployment rate are related to assumptions about future oil prices, exchange rates, interest rates and wage growth. Our findings indicate that inflation forecasts are closely associated with oil price expectations, whereas expected interest rates are used primarily to predict output growth and unemployment. Expectations about exchange rates and wage growth also matter for macroeconomic forecasts, albeit less so than oil prices and interest rates. We show that survey participants can considerably improve forecast accuracy for macroeconomic outcomes by reducing prediction errors for external conditions. Our results contribute to a better understanding of the expectation formation process of experts.
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How Forecast Accuracy Depends on Conditioning Assumptions
Carola Engelke, Katja Heinisch, Christoph Schult
IWH Discussion Papers,
Nr. 18,
2019
Abstract
This paper examines the extent to which errors in economic forecasts are driven by initial assumptions that prove to be incorrect ex post. Therefore, we construct a new data set comprising an unbalanced panel of annual forecasts from different institutions forecasting German GDP and the underlying assumptions. We explicitly control for different forecast horizons to proxy the information available at the release date. Over 75% of squared errors of the GDP forecast comove with the squared errors in their underlying assumptions. The root mean squared forecast error for GDP in our regression sample of 1.52% could be reduced to 1.13% by setting all assumption errors to zero. This implies that the accuracy of the assumptions is of great importance and that forecasters should reveal the framework of their assumptions in order to obtain useful policy recommendations based on economic forecasts.
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