The Accuracy of European Growth and Inflation Forecasts

One-year-ahead forecasts by the OECD and by national institutes of GDP growth and inflation in 13 European countries are analysed. RMSE was large: 1.9 % for growth and 1.6 % for inflation. Six (11) OECD and 10 (7) institute growth forecast records were significantly better than an average growth forecast (the current year forecast). All full record-length inflation forecasts were significantly better than both naive alternatives. There was no significant difference in accuracy between the forecasts of the OECD and the institutes. Two forecasts were found to be biased and one had autocorrelated errors. Directional forecasts were significantly better than a naive alternative in one-half of the cases. Overall, inflation forecasts were significantly more accurate than growth forecasts, and in contrast to growth forecasts, they generally improved over time. This has implications for economic policy. Positively biased revisions reveal large errors in data.