Handbook of Economic Forecasting

Chapter 3

Forecasting Output

Marcelle Chauvet* and Simon Potter^†,     ^*Department of Economics, University of California Riverside, CA 92521, USA, ^†Federal Reserve Bank of New York, 33 Liberty St., New York, NY 10045, USA, ^*E-mail: [e-mail], ^†E-mail: [e-mail]

Abstract

This chapter surveys the recent literature on output forecasting, and examines the real-time forecasting ability of several models for U.S. output growth. In particular, it evaluates the accuracy of short-term forecasts of linear and nonlinear structural and reduced-form models, and judgmental forecasts of output growth. Our emphasis is on using solely the information that was available at the time the forecast was being made, in order to reproduce the forecasting ...