Further Cross-Country Evidence on the Accuracy of the Private Sector's Output Forecasts

This paper evaluates the performance of Consensus Forecasts of real GDP growth for a large number of industrialized and developing countries for the time period October 1989 to December 1999. The questions addressed are the following: How accurate are private sector forecasts? How does their accuracy compare with that of the IMF's World Economic Outlook? How well do forecasters predict rare events such as recessions or crises? Is discord among forecasters associated with lower forecast accuracy? Copyright 2002, International Monetary Fund