Hungary launched its first Technology Foresight Programme (TEP) in 1997. This was a holistic foresight programme, based on panel activities and a large-scale Delphi survey, with a strong emphasis on socio-economic needs. The paper discusses why a foresight exercise is relevant to a transition...

This study examines the forecasting power of confidence indicators for the Russian economy. ARX models are fitted to the six confidence or composite indicators, which were then compared to a simple benchmark AR-model. The study used the output of the five main branches as the reference series....

Is it possible to forecast using poorly measured data? According to the permanent income hypothesis, a low personal saving rate should predict rising future income (Campbell, 1987). However, the U.S. personal saving rate is initially poorly measured and has been repeatedly revised upward in...

The current economic crisis requires fast information to predict economic behavior early, which is difficult at times of structural changes. This paper suggests an innovative new method of using data on internet activity for that purpose. It demonstrates strong correlations between keyword...

The current economic crisis requires fast information to predict economic behavior early, which is difficult at times of structural changes. This paper suggests an innovative new method of using data on internet activity for that purpose. It demonstrates strong correlations between keyword...

Released at both weekly and monthly intervals, chain store indexes provide a timely measure of the sales performance of large retail companies. This article investigates whether the indexes can also play a role in tracking and forecasting consumer spending as a whole. The authors begin by...

This paper discusses how forecasts are affected by the use of real-time data rather than latest-available data. The key issue is this: In the literature on developing forecasting models, new models are put together based on the results they yield using the data set available to the model's...

In recent years, the international community has been increasing its efforts to reduce the human footprint on air pollution and global warming. Total CO2 emissions are a key component of global emissions, and as such, they are closely monitored by national and supranational entities. This study...

We report the results of the first large-scale, long-term, experimental test between two crowd sourcing methods – prediction markets and prediction polls. More than 2,400 participants made forecasts on 261 events over two seasons of a geopolitical prediction tournament. Some forecasters traded...

Earnings growth dispersion contains information about trends in labor reallocation, unemployment change, and, ultimately, aggregate output. We find that initial macroeconomic estimates released by government statistical agencies do not fully incorporate this information. As a consequence,...