How Accurate Are the Imf's Short-Term Forecasts? Another Examination of the World Economic Outlook

August 1, 1996

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Format: Chicago

Michael J. Artis How Accurate Are the Imf's Short-Term Forecasts? Another Examination of the World Economic Outlook, (USA: International Monetary Fund, 1996) accessed September 18, 2024

Disclaimer: This Working Paper should not be reported as representing the views of the IMF.The views expressed in this Working Paper are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent those of the IMF or IMF policy. Working Papers describe research in progress by the author(s) and are published to elicit comments and to further debate

Summary

This paper analyzes the short-term forecasts for industrial and developing countries produced by the International Monetary Fund, and published twice a year in the World Economic Outlook (WEO). For the industrial country group, the WEO forecasts for output growth and inflation are satisfactory and pass most conventional tests in forecasting economic developments, although forecast accuracy has not improved over time, and predicting the turning points of the business cycle remains a weakness. For the developing countries, the task of forecasting movements in economic activity is even more difficult and the conventional measures of forecast accuracy are less satisfactory than for the industrial countries.

Subject: Balance of payments, Current account balance, Economic forecasting, Export performance, Inflation, International trade, Prices, Production, Production growth

Keywords: Actual value, Africa, Asia and Pacific, Country desk, Current account balance, Error statistics, Europe, Export performance, Inflation, Ljung-Box Q, Middle East, Production growth, Significance level, Terms of trade, Theil statistic, Time series, Western Hemisphere, WP

Publication Details

Pages:

94
Volume:

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DOI:

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Issue:

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Series:

Working Paper No. 1996/089
Stock No:

WPIEA0891996
ISBN:

9781451851250
ISSN:

1018-5941

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