Forecasts in Times of Crises

Forecasts in Times of Crises PDF Author: Theo S. Eicher
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484346815
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 33

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Book Description
Financial crises pose unique challenges for forecast accuracy. Using the IMF’s Monitoring of Fund Arrangement (MONA) database, we conduct the most comprehensive evaluation of IMF forecasts to date for countries in times of crises. We examine 29 macroeconomic variables in terms of bias, efficiency, and information content to find that IMF forecasts add substantial informational value as they consistently outperform naive forecast approaches. However, we also document that there is room for improvement: two thirds of the key macroeconomic variables that we examine are forecast inefficiently and 6 variables (growth of nominal GDP, public investment, private investment, the current account, net transfers, and government expenditures) exhibit significant forecast bias. Forecasts for low-income countries are the main drivers of forecast bias and inefficiency, reflecting perhaps larger shocks and lower data quality. When we decompose the forecast errors into their sources, we find that forecast errors for private consumption growth are the key contributor to GDP growth forecast errors. Similarly, forecast errors for non-interest expenditure growth and tax revenue growth are crucial determinants of the forecast errors in the growth of fiscal budgets. Forecast errors for balance of payments growth are significantly influenced by forecast errors in goods import growth. The results highlight which macroeconomic aggregates require further attention in future forecast models for countries in crises.

Forecasts in Times of Crises

Forecasts in Times of Crises PDF Author: Theo S. Eicher
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1484346815
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 33

Get Book Here

Book Description
Financial crises pose unique challenges for forecast accuracy. Using the IMF’s Monitoring of Fund Arrangement (MONA) database, we conduct the most comprehensive evaluation of IMF forecasts to date for countries in times of crises. We examine 29 macroeconomic variables in terms of bias, efficiency, and information content to find that IMF forecasts add substantial informational value as they consistently outperform naive forecast approaches. However, we also document that there is room for improvement: two thirds of the key macroeconomic variables that we examine are forecast inefficiently and 6 variables (growth of nominal GDP, public investment, private investment, the current account, net transfers, and government expenditures) exhibit significant forecast bias. Forecasts for low-income countries are the main drivers of forecast bias and inefficiency, reflecting perhaps larger shocks and lower data quality. When we decompose the forecast errors into their sources, we find that forecast errors for private consumption growth are the key contributor to GDP growth forecast errors. Similarly, forecast errors for non-interest expenditure growth and tax revenue growth are crucial determinants of the forecast errors in the growth of fiscal budgets. Forecast errors for balance of payments growth are significantly influenced by forecast errors in goods import growth. The results highlight which macroeconomic aggregates require further attention in future forecast models for countries in crises.

Macroeconomic Forecasting in Times of Crises

Macroeconomic Forecasting in Times of Crises PDF Author: Pablo Guerron-Quintana
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Forecasting GDP Growth in Times of Crisis

Forecasting GDP Growth in Times of Crisis PDF Author: Jasper de Winter
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 0

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Information Rigidity in Growth Forecasts

Information Rigidity in Growth Forecasts PDF Author: Ms.Natalia T. Tamirisa
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1455263427
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
We document information rigidity in forecasts for real GDP growth in 46 countries over the past two decades. We investigate: (i) if rigidities are lower around turning points in the economy, such as in times of recessions and crises; (ii) if rigidities differ across countries, particularly between advanced countries and emerging markets; and (iii) how quickly forecasters incorporate news about growth in other countries into their growth forecasts, with a focus on how advanced countries‘ growth forecasts incorporate news about emerging market growth and vice versa.

Forecasting the Covid-19 Recession and Recovery

Forecasting the Covid-19 Recession and Recovery PDF Author: Claudia Foroni
Publisher:
ISBN: 9789289943857
Category : COVID-19 (Disease)
Languages : en
Pages : 47

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Book Description
We consider simple methods to improve the growth nowcasts and forecasts obtained by mixed frequency MIDAS and UMIDAS models with a variety of indicators during the Covid-19 crisis and recovery period, such as combining forecasts across various specifications for the same model and/or across different models, extending the model specification by adding MA terms, enhancing the estimation method by taking a similarity approach, and adjusting the forecasts to put them back on track by a specific form of intercept correction. Among all these methods, adjusting the original nowcasts and forecasts by an amount similar to the nowcast and forecast errors made during the financial crisis and following recovery seems to produce the best results for the US, notwithstanding the different source and characteristics of the financial crisis. In particular, the adjusted growth nowcasts for 2020Q1 get closer to the actual value, and the adjusted forecasts based on alternative indicators become much more similar, all unfortunately indicating a much slower recovery than without adjustment and very persistent negative effects on trend growth. Similar findings emerge also for the other G7 countries.

Mathematical Forecasting at Times of Crisis

Mathematical Forecasting at Times of Crisis PDF Author: J. R. Basiurski
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Calculators and Quacks

Calculators and Quacks PDF Author: Harro Maas
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 25

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Book Description
In this paper, I take a talk show in which Coen Teulings, then Director of the official Dutch Bureau for Economic Forecasting and Policy Analysis (CPB) was interviewed about its economic forecasts in the immediate aftermath of the financial crisis of 2008 as point of entry into an examination into how personal experience and judgment enter, and are essential for, the production and presentation of economic forecasts. During the interview it transpired that CPB did not rely on its macroeconomic models, but on personal experience encapsulated in “hand-made” monitors, to observe the unfolding crisis; monitors that were, in Teulings' words, used to “feel the pulse” of the Dutch economy. I will take this metaphor as a cue to present several historical episodes in which models, numbers, and a certain feel for economic phenomena aimed to make CPB economists' research more precise. These episodes are linked with a story about vain attempts by CPB director Teulings to drive out the personal from economic forecasting. The crisis forced him to recognize that personal experience was more important in increasing the precision of economic forecasts than theoretical deepening. The crisis thus both challenged the belief in the supremacy of theory driven, computer-based forecasting, and helped foster the view that precision is inevitably linked to judgment, experience and observation, and not seated in increased attention to high theory; scientifically sound knowledge proved less useful than the technically unqualified experiential knowledge of quacks.

Forecast Combination for Euro Area Inflation

Forecast Combination for Euro Area Inflation PDF Author: Kirstin Hubrich
Publisher:
ISBN:
Category :
Languages : en
Pages :

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Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers

Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers PDF Author: Mr.Olivier J. Blanchard
Publisher: International Monetary Fund
ISBN: 1475576447
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 43

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Book Description
This paper investigates the relation between growth forecast errors and planned fiscal consolidation during the crisis. We find that, in advanced economies, stronger planned fiscal consolidation has been associated with lower growth than expected, with the relation being particularly strong, both statistically and economically, early in the crisis. A natural interpretation is that fiscal multipliers were substantially higher than implicitly assumed by forecasters. The weaker relation in more recent years may reflect in part learning by forecasters and in part smaller multipliers than in the early years of the crisis.

Superforecasting

Superforecasting PDF Author: Philip E. Tetlock
Publisher: Crown
ISBN: 080413670X
Category : Business & Economics
Languages : en
Pages : 331

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Book Description
NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER • NAMED ONE OF THE BEST BOOKS OF THE YEAR BY THE ECONOMIST “The most important book on decision making since Daniel Kahneman's Thinking, Fast and Slow.”—Jason Zweig, The Wall Street Journal Everyone would benefit from seeing further into the future, whether buying stocks, crafting policy, launching a new product, or simply planning the week’s meals. Unfortunately, people tend to be terrible forecasters. As Wharton professor Philip Tetlock showed in a landmark 2005 study, even experts’ predictions are only slightly better than chance. However, an important and underreported conclusion of that study was that some experts do have real foresight, and Tetlock has spent the past decade trying to figure out why. What makes some people so good? And can this talent be taught? In Superforecasting, Tetlock and coauthor Dan Gardner offer a masterwork on prediction, drawing on decades of research and the results of a massive, government-funded forecasting tournament. The Good Judgment Project involves tens of thousands of ordinary people—including a Brooklyn filmmaker, a retired pipe installer, and a former ballroom dancer—who set out to forecast global events. Some of the volunteers have turned out to be astonishingly good. They’ve beaten other benchmarks, competitors, and prediction markets. They’ve even beaten the collective judgment of intelligence analysts with access to classified information. They are "superforecasters." In this groundbreaking and accessible book, Tetlock and Gardner show us how we can learn from this elite group. Weaving together stories of forecasting successes (the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound) and failures (the Bay of Pigs) and interviews with a range of high-level decision makers, from David Petraeus to Robert Rubin, they show that good forecasting doesn’t require powerful computers or arcane methods. It involves gathering evidence from a variety of sources, thinking probabilistically, working in teams, keeping score, and being willing to admit error and change course. Superforecasting offers the first demonstrably effective way to improve our ability to predict the future—whether in business, finance, politics, international affairs, or daily life—and is destined to become a modern classic.