Final look at GDP forecasting by Czech institutions

Abstract

This paper deals with the evaluation of Czech institutions¶ (the Ministry of Finance and the Czech National Bank) real GDP growth forecasting performance between 1995 and 2015. Contrary to the author¶s previous papers on this topic, the set-up was altered, in order to assess an 18-month-long annual prediction and set a third estimate as the real-time data input. Using a battery of three error measures (MAE, RMSE, MASE) augmented by the Wilcoxon and Kruskal±Wallis tests, we have found that the MF and the CNB forecasts do not contain a systemic bias. Also, despite some isolated performance deficiencies (i.e. during the recession periods), the accuracy of forecasts prepared by both the MF and the CNB does not differ significantly from the benchmark forecasts of international institutions. Our outcomes hence correspond with the results of previous studies, implying that the changed data set-up does not affect the predictive accuracy of both institutions