A real time evaluation of Bank of England forecasts of inflation and growth

Abstract

We compare the Bank of England's Inflation Report quarterly forecasts for growth and inflation to real-time benchmark forecasts. The results reveal the well-known difficulty of forecasting in a stable macroeconomic environment, and the Inflation Report forecasts of GDP growth are generally inferior to forecasts from linear and non-linear univariate models. However, for the inflation forecast the Inflation Report is clearly dominant.Real-time data Forecast performance Inflation Growth