The quality of a consensus forecast for economic growth in Belgium, 1981-2001

This article evaluates the quality of an average or consensus forecast for economic growth in Belgium. A quarterly series of current and one-year-ahead growth forecasts is constructed as the average of forecasts published by Belgian institutions. In similar foreign studies a fixed number of forecasts is considered since a forecaster is only included if he published forecasts in every quarter of the sample; we do not take this restrictive view but calculated the average of all forecasts made available in any quarter. The consensus growth forecasts will be evaluated graphically, statistically an... Mehr ...