Macroeconomic Forecasting in Poland: Lessons From the COVID-19 Outbreak.

Rybacki, Jakub and Gniazdowski, Michał (2021): Macroeconomic Forecasting in Poland: Lessons From the COVID-19 Outbreak.

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to analyze the forecast errors of Polish professional forecasters under the COVID-19 crisis in 2020—based on the Parkiet competition. This analysis shows that after the initial disruption related to imposed lockdown in March and April, commercial economists were capable of lowering their forecasts errors of the industrial production and retail sales. On the other hand, the far worse performance has been seen in the case of the market variable; either the size of errors or the disagreement were elevated throughout the entirety of 2020. Furthermore, long-term forecasts that were produced during the first year of the pandemic have been characterized with visible inconsistencies (i.e., projections of economic growth were similar when forecasters either assumed a strong increase in unemployment or when they did not).

• Item Type: MPRA Paper
• Language: English
• Keywords: GDP forecasting, Labor Market forecasts, COVID-19
• Subjects: E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E2 - Consumption, Saving, Production, Investment, Labor Markets, and Informal Economy > E27 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E32 - Business Fluctuations ; Cycles; E - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics > E3 - Prices, Business Fluctuations, and Cycles > E37 - Forecasting and Simulation: Models and Applications

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