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Kiel Institute wins 2017 Forecast Accuracy Award
© IfW / Michael Stefan
The Forecasting Center, the Kiel Institute’s macroeconomic think tank and business cycle analysis unit, is among the winners of the “2017 Forecast Accuracy Award” (2017 FAA), a price awarded by the UK-based survey organization Consensus Economics. The Kiel Institute has been recognized for the most accurate prediction of GDP growth and inflation in Germany. The award reflects the forecasting performance for the year 2017 over a period of 24 months.
According to the analysis of Consensus Economics, the Kiel Institute’s Forecasting Center has outperformed all competitors in forecasting the development of German GDP and consumer prices. Consensus Economics surveys more than 700 professional forecasts from economists around the world on a monthly basis.
The winners of the 2017 FAA program have been recognized for their high-quality research, their commitment to regular forecasts and their ability to identify most accurately the trends and levels of key indicators over the 24 month forecasting cycle, the organization said.
In contrast to those rankings that simply compare the final outcome of economic indicators with their predicted values at a single fixed point in time (typically one year ahead of the official publication of the data), Consensus Economics analyzes the forecasting performance dynamically over a period of 24 months. This procedure attaches particular weight on the early identification of economic trends.
„This award acknowledges the solid work in the field of business cycle research at the Kiel Institute. In spite of all necessary caution with respect to evaluating forecasting accuracy – forecasters can be right for the wrong reasons and wrong for the right reasons – this award marks another encouraging success for the Forecasting Center complementing the good standing in other rankings. We particularly appreciate the FAA price as the Consensus Economics methodology is less prone to lucky strikes and one-time failures due to unforeseeable shocks“, comments Stefan Kooths, Head of Forecasting at the Kiel Institute.
