Has the accuracy of German macroeconomic forecasts improved?

Ullrich Heilemann and Herman Stekler

No 2003,31, Technical Reports from Technische Universität Dortmund, Sonderforschungsbereich 475: Komplexitätsreduktion in multivariaten Datenstrukturen

Abstract: The major focus of this paper is to determine whether the accuracy of German macroeconomic forecasts has improved over time. We examine 1-year-ahead forecasts of real GDP and inflation for 1967 to 2001 made by three major German forecasting groups and the OECD. We examine the accuracy of the forecasts over the entire period and in three sub-periods. We conclude that, with some exceptions, the errors of the German forecasters were similar to those of their US and UK counterparts. While the absolute size of the forecast errors has declined, this is not the case for relative accuracy. A benchmark comparison of these predictions with the ex post forecasts of a macroeconometric model indicates that the quality of the growth forecasts can be improved but that the expected increase in accuracy may not be substantial.

Keywords: Forecast evaluations; macroeconomic forecasting; accuracy limits (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2003
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Citations: View citations in EconPapers (5)

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Related works:
Working Paper: Has the Accuracy of German Macroeconomic Forecasts Improved? (2012)
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Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:zbw:sfb475:200331

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