IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/zbw/espost/180842.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

For how long do IMF forecasts of world economic growth stay up-to-date?

Author

Listed:
  • Heinisch, Katja
  • Lindner, Axel

Abstract

This study analyses the performance of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) World Economic Outlook output forecasts for the world and for both the advanced economies and the emerging and developing economies. With a focus on the forecast for the current year and the next year, we examine the durability of IMF forecasts, looking at how much time has to pass so that IMF forecasts can be improved by using leading indicators with monthly updates. Using a real-time data set for GDP and for indicators, we find that some simple single-indicator forecasts on the basis of data that are available at higher frequency can significantly outperform the IMF forecasts as soon as the publication of the IMF’s Outlook is only a few months old. In particular, there is an obvious gain using leading indicators from January to March for the forecast of the current year.

Suggested Citation

  • Heinisch, Katja & Lindner, Axel, 2018. "For how long do IMF forecasts of world economic growth stay up-to-date?," EconStor Open Access Articles and Book Chapters, ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, issue Latest ar, pages 1-6.
    • Handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:180842
    DOI: 10.1080/13504851.2018.1459035
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.econstor.eu/bitstream/10419/180842/3/For%20how%20long%20do%20IMF%20forecasts%20of%20world%20economic%20growth%20stay%20up%20to%20date.pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1080/13504851.2018.1459035?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Audrone Jakaitiene & Stephane Dees, 2012. "Forecasting the World Economy in the Short Term," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 35(3), pages 331-350, March.
    2. Raffaella Giacomini & Halbert White, 2006. "Tests of Conditional Predictive Ability," Econometrica, Econometric Society, vol. 74(6), pages 1545-1578, November.
    3. Golinelli, Roberto & Parigi, Giuseppe, 2014. "Tracking world trade and GDP in real time," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 847-862.
    4. Allan Timmermann, 2007. "An Evaluation of the World Economic Outlook Forecasts," IMF Staff Papers, Palgrave Macmillan, vol. 54(1), pages 1-33, May.
    5. Frank-Oliver Aldenhoff, 2007. "Are economic forecasts of the International Monetary Fund politically biased? A public choice analysis," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 239-260, September.
    6. Laurent Ferrara & Clément Marsilli, 2019. "Nowcasting global economic growth: A factor‐augmented mixed‐frequency approach," The World Economy, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 42(3), pages 846-875, March.
    7. Michelle T. Armesto & Kristie M. Engemann & Michael T. Owyang, 2010. "Forecasting with mixed frequencies," Review, Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, vol. 92(Nov), pages 521-536.
    8. Yock Y. Chong & David F. Hendry, 1986. "Econometric Evaluation of Linear Macro-Economic Models," The Review of Economic Studies, Review of Economic Studies Ltd, vol. 53(4), pages 671-690.
    9. Axel Dreher & Silvia Marchesi & James Vreeland, 2008. "The political economy of IMF forecasts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 145-171, October.
    10. Ruben Atoyan & Patrick Conway, 2011. "Projecting macroeconomic outcomes: Evidence from the IMF," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 415-441, September.
    11. Frenkel, Michael & Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Zimmermann, Lilli, 2013. "Do private sector forecasters chase after IMF or OECD forecasts?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 217-229.
    12. Harvey, David & Leybourne, Stephen & Newbold, Paul, 1997. "Testing the equality of prediction mean squared errors," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 13(2), pages 281-291, June.
    13. Mr. Michael J. Artis, 1996. "How Accurate Are the Imf's Short-Term Forecasts? Another Examination of the World Economic Outlook," IMF Working Papers 1996/089, International Monetary Fund.
    14. Yi Zheng & James Rossiter, 2006. "Using Monthly Indicators to Predict Quarterly GDP," Staff Working Papers 06-26, Bank of Canada.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Christopher Hoy & Andy Sumner, 2021. "The End of Global Poverty: Is the UN Sustainable Development Goal 1 (Still) Achievable?," Global Policy, London School of Economics and Political Science, vol. 12(4), pages 419-429, September.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. Drechsel, Katja & Giesen, Sebastian & Lindner, Axel, 2014. "Outperforming IMF Forecasts by the Use of Leading Indicators," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100393, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    2. Eicher, Theo S. & Kawai, Reina, 2023. "IMF trade forecasts for crisis countries: Bias, inefficiency, and their origins," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1615-1639.
    3. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2023. "Assessing the World Bank’s growth forecasts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 64-84.
    4. Ulrich Gunter & Irem Önder & Stefan Gindl, 2019. "Exploring the predictive ability of LIKES of posts on the Facebook pages of four major city DMOs in Austria," Tourism Economics, , vol. 25(3), pages 375-401, May.
    5. Rybacki, Jakub, 2021. "Does International Monetary Fund Favor Certain Countries During the Fiscal Forecasting – Evidence of the Institutional Biases?," MPRA Paper 107681, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Merola, Rossana & Pérez, Javier J., 2013. "Fiscal forecast errors: Governments versus independent agencies?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 285-299.
    7. Barbara Rossi & Atsushi Inoue, 2012. "Out-of-Sample Forecast Tests Robust to the Choice of Window Size," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 30(3), pages 432-453, April.
    8. Clark, Todd & McCracken, Michael, 2013. "Advances in Forecast Evaluation," Handbook of Economic Forecasting, in: G. Elliott & C. Granger & A. Timmermann (ed.), Handbook of Economic Forecasting, edition 1, volume 2, chapter 0, pages 1107-1201, Elsevier.
    9. Busetti, Fabio & Marcucci, Juri, 2013. "Comparing forecast accuracy: A Monte Carlo investigation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 29(1), pages 13-27.
    10. Alessandro Girardi & Roberto Golinelli & Carmine Pappalardo, 2017. "The role of indicator selection in nowcasting euro-area GDP in pseudo-real time," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(1), pages 79-99, August.
    11. Zidong An & Joao Tovar Jalles, 2020. "On the performance of US fiscal forecasts: government vs. private information," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 367-391, June.
    12. Dreger, Christian & Wolters, Jürgen, 2014. "Money demand and the role of monetary indicators in forecasting euro area inflation," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(2), pages 303-312.
    13. Timmermann, Allan & Qu, Ritong & Zhu, Yinchu, 2019. "Do Any Economists Have Superior Forecasting Skills?," CEPR Discussion Papers 14112, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    14. Cepni, Oguzhan & Clements, Michael P., 2024. "How local is the local inflation factor? Evidence from emerging European countries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(1), pages 160-183.
    15. Hassan Naqvi, 2014. "IMF Conditionality and the Intertemporal Allocation of Resources," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 203-235, June.
    16. Eicher, Theo S. & Rollinson, Yuan Gao, 2023. "The accuracy of IMF crises nowcasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 431-449.
    17. Pablo Pincheira, 2010. "A Real Time Evaluation of the Central Bank of Chile GDP Growth Forecasts," Money Affairs, CEMLA, vol. 0(1), pages 37-73, January-J.
    18. Golinelli, Roberto & Parigi, Giuseppe, 2014. "Tracking world trade and GDP in real time," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 30(4), pages 847-862.
    19. Frank Bohn & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2021. "Do expected downturns kill political budget cycles?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 817-841, October.
    20. Timmermann, Allan & Zhu, Yinchu, 2019. "Comparing Forecasting Performance with Panel Data," CEPR Discussion Papers 13746, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    IMF WEO forecasts; leading indicators; real-time data;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E02 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - General - - - Institutions and the Macroeconomy
    • E32 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Business Fluctuations; Cycles
    • E37 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles - - - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications
    • O19 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Development - - - International Linkages to Development; Role of International Organizations

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:zbw:espost:180842. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/zbwkide.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.