A comparative study of the forecasting performance of three international organizations

摘要

The annual economic forecasts made by the United Nations in the period of 1981-2011 are found to be fairly robust in general, in terms of systematical biasness and efficiency. The mean and median of forecasting errors are not significantly different from zero for the world economy, the groups of developed countries and developing countries, and individual countries. The forecasting performance of the UN is superior to random-walk forecasting models.