IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/germec/v14y2013i2p235-253.html

Has The Accuracy of Macroeconomic Forecasts for Germany Improved?

Author

Listed:
  • Ullrich Heilemann
  • Herman O. Stekler

Abstract

This study asks whether the accuracy of macroeconomic forecasts for Germany has improved over time. We examine one-year-ahead forecasts of rates of real GDP growth and inflation for the years 1967-2010, by three major German forecasters and the OECD. We find that overall error levels are high but not much different from those of the U.S. and U.K. In the 1980s and 1990s accuracy improved somewhat, but has now returned to its 1970s level, indicating that it reflects the variance of growth and inflation. Benchmark comparisons with these predictions with ex post forecasts of a macroeconometric model indicate that accuracy can be improved, but it will be difficult to achieve.
(This abstract was borrowed from another version of this item.)

Suggested Citation

  • Ullrich Heilemann & Herman O. Stekler, 2013. "Has The Accuracy of Macroeconomic Forecasts for Germany Improved?," German Economic Review, Verein für Socialpolitik, vol. 14(2), pages 235-253, May.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:germec:v:14:y:2013:i:2:p:235-253
    DOI: 10.1111/j.1468-0475.2012.00569.x
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://hdl.handle.net/10.1111/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2012.00569.x
    Download Restriction: Access to full text is restricted to subscribers.
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1111/j.1468-0475.2012.00569.x?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
    ---><---

    As the access to this document is restricted, you may want to look for a different version below or

    for a different version of it.

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Stephen K. McNees, 1988. "How accurate are macroeconomic forecasts?," New England Economic Review, Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, issue Jul, pages 15-36.
    2. Jacob A. Mincer & Victor Zarnowitz, 1969. "The Evaluation of Economic Forecasts," NBER Chapters, in: Economic Forecasts and Expectations: Analysis of Forecasting Behavior and Performance, pages 3-46, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc.
    3. Jacob A. Mincer, 1969. "Economic Forecasts and Expectations: Analysis of Forecasting Behavior and Performance," NBER Books, National Bureau of Economic Research, Inc, number minc69-1, January.
    4. Merton, Robert C, 1981. "On Market Timing and Investment Performance. I. An Equilibrium Theory of Value for Market Forecasts," The Journal of Business, University of Chicago Press, vol. 54(3), pages 363-406, July.
    5. Stekler, H. O., 1991. "Macroeconomic forecast evaluation techniques," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 7(3), pages 375-384, November.
    6. Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2009. "Do Forecasters Inform or Reassure? Evaluation of the German Real-Time Data," Applied Economics Quarterly (formerly: Konjunkturpolitik), Duncker & Humblot, Berlin, vol. 55(4), pages 269-294.
    7. Döhrn Roland & Schmidt Christoph M., 2011. "Information or Institution?: On the Determinants of Forecast Accuracy," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(1), pages 9-27, February.
    8. Jörg Döpke & Ulrich Fritsche & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2010. "Evaluating German business cycle forecasts under an asymmetric loss function," OECD Journal: Journal of Business Cycle Measurement and Analysis, OECD Publishing, Centre for International Research on Economic Tendency Surveys, vol. 2010(1), pages 1-18.
    9. Dicke, Hugo & Glismann, Hans G., 2002. "Konjunkturprognosen und wissenschaftlich-technischer Fortschritt," Wirtschaftsdienst – Zeitschrift für Wirtschaftspolitik (1949 - 2007), ZBW - Leibniz Information Centre for Economics, vol. 82(3), pages 167-169.
    10. Fildes, Robert & Stekler, Herman, 2002. "The state of macroeconomic forecasting," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 24(4), pages 435-468, December.
    11. Francis X. Diebold & Jose A. Lopez, 1995. "Forecast evaluation and combination," Research Paper 9525, Federal Reserve Bank of New York.
    12. Jörg Döpke & Ulrich Fritsche, 2006. "Growth and inflation forecasts for Germany a panel-based assessment of accuracy and efficiency," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 31(3), pages 777-798, September.
    13. Konstantin A. Kholodilin & Boriss Siliverstovs, 2009. "Do forecasters inform or reassure?," KOF Working papers 09-215, KOF Swiss Economic Institute, ETH Zurich.
    14. Batchelor, R A, 1990. "All Forecasters Are Equal," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, American Statistical Association, vol. 8(1), pages 143-144, January.
    15. Oller, Lars-Erik & Barot, Bharat, 2000. "The accuracy of European growth and inflation forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 293-315.
    16. Lukas Vogel, 2007. "How do the OECD Growth Projections for the G7 Economies Perform?: A Post-Mortem," OECD Economics Department Working Papers 573, OECD Publishing.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Ullrich Heilemann & Herman Stekler, 2010. "Perspectives on Evaluating Macroeconomic Forecasts," Working Papers 2010-002, The George Washington University, The Center for Economic Research.
    2. Heilemann, Ullrich & Stekler, H. O., 2003. "Has the accuracy of German macroeconomic forecasts improved?," Technical Reports 2003,31, Technische Universität Dortmund, Sonderforschungsbereich 475: Komplexitätsreduktion in multivariaten Datenstrukturen.
    3. Karsten Müller, 2022. "German forecasters’ narratives: How informative are German business cycle forecast reports?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 62(5), pages 2373-2415, May.
    4. Döpke, Jörg & Fritsche, Ulrich & Müller, Karsten, 2019. "Has macroeconomic forecasting changed after the Great Recession? Panel-based evidence on forecast accuracy and forecaster behavior from Germany," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 62(C).
    5. Behrens, Christoph, 2020. "German trade forecasts since 1970: An evaluation using the panel dimension," Working Papers 26, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    6. Vuchelen, Jef & Gutierrez, Maria-Isabel, 2005. "A direct test of the information content of the OECD growth forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 21(1), pages 103-117.
    7. Jörg Döpke & Ulrich Fritsche & Karsten Müller, 2018. "Has Macroeconomic Forecasting changed after the Great Recession? - Panel-based Evidence on Accuracy and Forecaster Behaviour from Germany," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 201803, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    8. Ulrich Fritsche & Artur Tarassow, 2017. "Vergleichende Evaluation der Konjunkturprognosen des Instituts für Makroökonomie und Konjunkturforschung an der Hans-Böckler-Stiftung für den Zeitraum 2005-2014," IMK Studies 54-2017, IMK at the Hans Boeckler Foundation, Macroeconomic Policy Institute.
    9. Giovannelli, Alessandro & Pericoli, Filippo Maria, 2020. "Are GDP forecasts optimal? Evidence on European countries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 36(3), pages 963-973.
    10. Bespalova, Olga, 2018. "Forecast Evaluation in Macroeconomics and International Finance. Ph.D. thesis, George Washington University, Washington, DC, USA," MPRA Paper 117706, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    11. repec:lan:wpaper:470 is not listed on IDEAS
    12. Jef Vuchelen & Maria-Isabel Gutierrez, 2005. "Do the OECD 24 month horizon growth forecasts for the G7-countries contain information?," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 37(8), pages 855-862.
    13. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2023. "Assessing the World Bank’s growth forecasts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 64-84.
    14. Constantin Burgi, 2016. "What Do We Lose When We Average Expectations?," Working Papers 2016-013, The George Washington University, The Center for Economic Research.
    15. Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2021. "Thirty‐year assessment of Asian Development Bank's forecasts," Asian-Pacific Economic Literature, The Crawford School, The Australian National University, vol. 35(2), pages 18-40, November.
    16. Ullrich Heilemann & Karsten Müller, 2018. "Wenig Unterschiede – Zur Treffsicherheit Internationaler Prognosen und Prognostiker [Few differences—on the accuracy of international forecasts and forecaster]," AStA Wirtschafts- und Sozialstatistisches Archiv, Springer;Deutsche Statistische Gesellschaft - German Statistical Society, vol. 12(3), pages 195-233, December.
    17. Katharina Glass, 2018. "Predictability of Euro Area Revisions," Macroeconomics and Finance Series 201801, University of Hamburg, Department of Socioeconomics.
    18. Behrens, Christoph, 2019. "Evaluating the Joint Efficiency of German Trade Forecasts. A nonparametric multivariate approach," Working Papers 9, German Research Foundation's Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour", Humboldt University Berlin.
    19. repec:lan:wpaper:425 is not listed on IDEAS
    20. repec:lan:wpaper:539557 is not listed on IDEAS
    21. Paulo Júlio & Pedro M. Esperança & João C. Fonseca, 2011. "Evaluating the forecast quality of GDP components," GEE Papers 0041 Classification-C52, , Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Oct 2011.
    22. repec:lan:wpaper:413 is not listed on IDEAS
    23. Grant Allan, 2012. "Evaluating the usefulness of forecasts of relative growth," Working Papers 1214, University of Strathclyde Business School, Department of Economics.
    24. Ericsson, Neil R., 2016. "Eliciting GDP forecasts from the FOMC’s minutes around the financial crisis," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 571-583.

    More about this item

    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:bla:germec:v:14:y:2013:i:2:p:235-253. 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: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfsocea.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.