Title Data Dissemination Standards and the Statistical Quality of the IMF's World Economic Outlook Forecasts

Published Washington : International Monetary Fund, 2010

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Description 1 online resource (33 pages) Series IMF Working Papers IMF Working Papers Contents Cover Page; Title Page; Copyright Page; Contents; I. Introduction; II. A Theoretical Prelude; A. Timing conventions; B. Properties of Optimal Forecasts; C. Data Dissemination Standards and Forecast Statistical quality; Figure 1: An example of SDDS and GDDS periodicity and timeliness requirements; III. The Data Set; A. Data Coverage by Year and by Region; Table 1. Data coverage by years; Table 2. Data coverage by region; B. Descriptive Statistics of Forecast Errors; Table 3. Descriptive statistics of the forecast errors; C. The Distribution of Forecast Errors Figure 2: The shape of the same period real GDP forecast error distributionTable 4. Parametric estimates of forecast errors for the Pearson family; IV. Empirical Results; A. Descriptive Variance Analysis; Table 5. Mean-Variance analysis of same period annual real GDP forecast errors; Table 6. Mean-Variance analysis of one period ahead annual real GDP forecast errors; Table 7. Mean-Variance analysis of same period annual inflation forecast errors; Table 8. Mean-Variance analysis of one period ahead annual inflation forecast errors; B. Variance Equality Tests Table 9: Test for equality of variances, annual real GDP growth rate forecast errorsTable 10: Test for equality of variances, annual inflation rate forecast errors; C. Correlation Analysis; Table 11: Covariance analysis of real GDP and inflation forecast errors; V. Conclusion; VII. Appendix: The Levene and Brown-Forsythe Tests; VI. References; Footnotes Summary This paper analyzes the effects of IMF member countries participation in the IMF's Data Standards Initiatives (DSI) on the statistical quality of WEO forecasts. Results show that WEO forecasts for SDDS subscribers are in general better than for GDDS participants and those member countries than do not participate in the DSIs. Policy implications are that the DSI positively affect the statistical quality of forecasts and by extension improve the necessary conditions for multilateral surveillance and the provision of member countries with high quality policy advice Notes English Print version record Subject Economic indicators -- Standards Finance -- Statistics -- Standards Finance Form Electronic book ISBN 9781455231409 1455231401 1283554909 9781283554909 9781455205349 1455205346 145524855X 9781455248551 9786613867353 6613867357

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