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Do IMF fiscal forecasts add value?
Author(s) -
An Zidong,
Jalles João Tovar,
Loungani Prakash,
Sousa Ricardo M.
Publication year - 2018
Publication title -
journal of forecasting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.543
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1099-131X
pISSN - 0277-6693
DOI - 10.1002/for.2527
Subject(s) - consensus forecast , economics , value (mathematics) , emerging markets , private sector , fiscal policy , econometrics , macroeconomics , computer science , machine learning , economic growth
We used a panel of 29 advanced and emerging market countries to investigate whether the IMF's World Economic Outlook (WEO) fiscal forecasts add value in terms of forecast accuracy and information content, relative to private sector forecasts (from Consensus Economics). We find that: (i) WEO forecasts are not significantly less accurate than Consensus forecasts; (ii) WEO and Consensus forecasts tend to mutually encompass one another; and (iii) each source of forecasts appears to contain some information that is not embedded in the other source.