4

I was looking for a source of economic and financial forecast information. I have already checked the IMF and the OECD, but they have forecasts up to 2011. Is there something with forecasts up to 2015? Some central bank or some university for example?

I plan to enlarge the list below:

Improve this question
3
  • 3
    A nice question, but forecasting is ever so difficult. Most analysts prefer to explain what happens as some logical event, but they are lousy at forecasting tomorrows event. The 'best' forecast is to look at recent events and 'predict' a continuation of that trend... – GUI Junkie Nov 8 '10 at 23:36
  • 1
    Here is a nice interactive website that many economists use for forecasting. Enjoy. – Muro Nov 21 '10 at 19:10
  • 1
    Financial predictions are EITHER long term OR accurate. Never both. – DJClayworth Jun 21 '13 at 20:34
1

This isn't a direct answer to your question, but I want to point out a few things that may help in your eventual goal.

Forecasting that far into the future is difficult at best, as the future is driven by all sorts of factors, from economic to political to environmental. Many of these factors can be seemingly random.

IMO, the best way to get a feel for the future is to actively broaden your knowledge. Read publications that policy-makers read like the Economist and Foreign Affairs. Understand what companies with regional, national and global reach are worried about by listening to earnings calls. What important things are going on that the mainstream media is ignoring?

YouTube, TED and iTunes U make this easier than it used to be -- listen to what smart people think about various issues. But listen with a critical ear -- smart people are often full of it.

At the end of the day, there's no single source that will predict the future in a meaningful way. Some people predict trends in data well, others are good at analyzing data, still others simply filter the data to dovetail with whatever their agenda happens to be.

For data sources, check out:

  • The US Federal Reserve, including the regional Federal reserve banks
  • FAS.org
Improve this answer
1

I won't address question of whether or not forecasting accurately is a viable goal or not, since for better or for worse, forecasting is here to stay, and progress in time series econometrics and dynamic modelling mean it's only growing in importance.

Moving beyond that debate, here are a few sources for economic forecasts that I've used in the past.

Free

  1. For general articles, the Wall Street Journal is a commonly-used source.
  2. You can often find economic forecasts by searching online for proceedings from various meetings; for example, here is a report from a meeting of the New York State Forecast Committee that describes forecasts for real GDP growth for 2013 and 2014.
  3. Forecasts.org has a page of forecasts for economic indicators is a nice source for quick forecast information. If you want more detailed forecasts from them, you'll need to subscribe, but they offer a great deal for free.
  4. The Congressional Budget Office publishes The Budget and Economic Outlook, which focuses on GDP, government deficits, etc.
  5. The Council of Economic Advisers publishes their Economic Report to the President on an annual basis; if you follow the links for each report, you'll see sections that discuss economic forecasts.

Subscription

Focus Economics is one of several companies that offers paid subscriptions to detailed economic forecasts. You can download samples (from July 2011) of their forecasts for the major economics, Euro area, Asia/Pacific, etc. The documents contain economic forecasts:

Focus Economics - sample of economic forecasts

and general analysis:

Focus Economics - sample of economic analysis

The actual sample is 83 pages, so there is quite a bit of information there.

Consensus Economics is another company that provides paid subscriptions, albeit from different sources. They also publish tables of economic forecasts:

Consensus Economics - general economic forecasts

You can download samples of these forecasts for the world, the US, energy and metal markets, foreign exchange markets, Latin America, Eastern Europe, Asia/Pacific, as well as general current economic information, and others. The regional reports also provide foreign exchange forecasts for those regions, analysis, charts, etc.

Other

You can usually find sector-specific economic forecasts simply by searching online for organizations in that sector; for example, Fierce Biotech provides articles and general information about the biotech industry, and some of their analysis articles discuss forecasts for the sector. The National Association of Home Builders provides forecasts of the housing sector and related information. You could probably find similar information for other sectors.

Improve this answer
3
  • 1
    Looks like within .5% of actual, this is bad? – JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ Jun 24 '13 at 13:08
  • @JoeTaxpayer Since we're forecasting the growth rate of US GDP, that's actually a sizable difference. The plot was pretty ambiguous, though, so I removed it while I work on clearer example; to do this right, I would need to get into issues of stationarity and serial correlation, which would be straying a bit from the original request for sources. – John Bensin Jun 24 '13 at 13:38
  • fair enough, but the range would naturally go, say, -1% to 5% (I remember 5% growth), so .5% vs 1% seems on track. I'll look for your next forecast! – JTP - Apologise to Monica♦ Jun 24 '13 at 16:45

Your Answer

By clicking “Post Your Answer”, you agree to our terms of service, privacy policy and cookie policy