IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/imf/imfwpa/2021-216.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

An Evaluation of World Economic Outlook Growth Forecasts, 2004–17

Author

Listed:
  • Oya Celasun
  • Jungjin Lee
  • Mr. Mico Mrkaic
  • Mr. Allan Timmermann

Abstract

This paper examines the performance of World Economic Outlook (WEO) growth forecasts for 2004-17. Short-term real GDP growth forecasts over that period exhibit little bias, and their accuracy is broadly similar to those of Consensus Economics forecasts. By contrast, two- to five-year ahead WEO growth forecasts in 2004-17 tend to be upward biased, and in up to half of countries less accurate than a naïve forecast given by the average growth rate in the recent past. The analysis suggests that a more efficient use of available information on internal and external factors—such as the estimated output gap, projected terms of trade, and the growth forecasts of major trading partners—can improve the accuracy of some economies’ growth forecasts.

Suggested Citation

  • Oya Celasun & Jungjin Lee & Mr. Mico Mrkaic & Mr. Allan Timmermann, 2021. "An Evaluation of World Economic Outlook Growth Forecasts, 2004–17," IMF Working Papers 2021/216, International Monetary Fund.
    • Handle: RePEc:imf:imfwpa:2021/216
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/cat/longres.aspx?sk=462892
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Citations

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


    Cited by:

    1. Metodij Hadzi‐Vaskov & Luca Antonio Ricci & Alejandro Mariano Werner & Rene Zamarripa, 2023. "What drives economic growth forecast revisions?," Review of International Economics, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 31(3), pages 1068-1092, August.
    2. Eicher, Theo S. & Kawai, Reina, 2024. "Systemic bias of IMF reserve and debt forecasts for program countries," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 40(3), pages 985-1001.
    3. Kibrom A Abay & Nishant Yonzan & Sikandra Kurdi & Kibrom Tafere, 2023. "Revisiting Poverty Trends and the Role of Social Protection Systems in Africa during the COVID-19 Pandemic," Journal of African Economies, Centre for the Study of African Economies, vol. 32(Supplemen), pages 44-68.
    4. Brandao-Marques, Luis & Casiraghi, Marco & Gelos, Gaston & Harrison, Olamide & Kamber, Gunes, 2024. "Is high debt Constraining monetary policy? evidence from inflation expectations," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 149(C).

    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:imf:imfwpa:2021/216. 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.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using 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: Akshay Modi (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/imfffus.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.