An evaluation of Chinese macroeconomic forecasts

This article evaluates the quality of professional macroeconomic forecasts in China for the years 1995–2009. Using a large panel of forecasts on four macroeconomic variables (GDP, inflation, consumption and investment), we reject the hypothesis of unbiasedness, and find that forecasters have been, on average, overly pessimistic. The source of the bias lies primarily in forecasters' slow adjustment to structural shocks to the level of economic growth. We also reject the hypothesis that forecasters use information efficiently, and find that a large number of forecasters overreact to economic news. Finally, we document large differences of forecast accuracy across both forecasters and variables.     

Scenario of the socioeconomic development of Russian regions up to 2030 in light of large-scale investment projects implemented in the regions

This paper presents a scenario of Russia’s socioeconomic development formed as part of macroeconomic forecasts by the Ministry of Economic Development of Russia based on the developed method. Trends in the regional and industrial structure of the national economy have been analyzed. The influence of prospective large-scale investment projects on the economic development of Russia and its regions has been evaluated.     

Measuring the Accuracy of Federal Reserve Forecasts

Markets across the world pay enormous attention to every economic forecast made by Federal Reserve governors, particularly those from the chair. This article develops a new way that the academic literature can assess the accuracy of these Federal Reserve forecasts. In particular, our proposed method allows for both general and specific predictions to be assessed, while also accounting for the macroeconomic volatility that prevails at the time of the forecast. To develop this measure, we expand upon a methodology proposed by the Wall Street Journal to score the accuracy of forecasts made by the Fed. Our results show that Alan Greenspan was consistently the most accurate forecaster among Fed governors, while the most recent chair in our sample, Janet Yellen, has performed relatively poorly. More generally, we find that the chairs have become less accurate over time with their forecasts and have also tended to make fewer specific predictions.     

The Macro Forecasting Record of the Indonesian Financial Authorities, 2004–15

A precondition for financial authorities’ macroeconomic effectiveness is a capacity to foresee economic conditions with reasonable accuracy. This article analyses the performance of Bank Indonesia (the central bank) and Indonesia’s Ministry of Finance in forecasting real GDP growth and consumer inflation over the last decade or so. It compares the quality of their forecasts with those of international institutions, aligning the timing of these forecasts to maximise comparability. Overall, the Indonesian authorities—especially the Ministry of Finance, in its revised central government budget (APBN-P)—perform respectably against their international comparators and there is no statistically significant bias in any of the forecasts. Still, there are mild indications of an optimistic bias in forecasts of inflation and growth, and all institutions tend to miss growth slowdowns. The results raise doubts about the value of fiscal policy for near-term macro stabilisation in Indonesia. Likewise, a wide range of uncertainty in forecasting inflation complicates the use of monetary policy for inflation targeting, at least one year ahead.     

Macroeconomic dynamics of the Russian economy in the long term

The article presents the main provisions of the macroeconomic section of the regular long term forecasts of the Institute for Economic Forecasting, Russian Academy of Science, prepared in 2012. The key idea of the forecast is based on an assessment of the growth potential of the Russian economy. It is necessary for the definition of an economic policy aimed at achieving this potential result in the perspective until 2030.     

Russia’s energy systems: Opportunities and prospects

The paper considers macroeconomic forecasts of the performance of Russia’s Fuel and Energy Complex (FEC) up to 2030–2040 based on projections of economic development (worked out at the Institute of Economic Forecasting, Russian Academy of Sciences), predictive assessments of the economic aspects of the production of major fuel types, Russia’s involvement in meeting the world’s demand for oil and gas, and the progress in the development of new energy sources. It is demonstrated that, according to the expected demand for energy carriers and the proposed changes in the FEC structure and technological base, carbon dioxide emissions by FEC facilities in the considered term will not exceed the 1990 level recorded in the Kyoto Protocol. It is shown that the annual volume of investment in the energy industry by 2030 should be at least double the level of the 2000–2010 requirements and by 2040 it is expected to increase by another 15–20%.     

Macroeconomic uncertainty,high-level innovation,and urban green development performance in China

This study incorporates macroeconomic uncertainty and high-level innovation into the framework of urban green development performance analysis. The positive impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on high-level innovation is related to the economic level and geographical location of cities. In developed cities and coastal cities, positive incentives for high-level innovation depicted by invention patents and green technology patents are generated, but the impacts are not significant in less developed cities. The negative impact of macroeconomic uncertainty on green development performance of developed and coastal cities is not significant, but it has a more obvious inhibition effect in less developed cities; raising the proportion of high-level innovation helps to weaken this negative impact.     

对当前中国宏观经济形势的深入分析

目前,由于受世界金融危机和国内经济形势的不利影响,我国国民经济增长由上升转为下降趋势,宏观经济的发展形势严峻。但是我国国内生产总值有望持续增长,经济发展势头良好。我们应该在深刻了解宏观经济发展趋势的同时,促进经济的进一步发展。     

An analysis of RSQE forecasts: 1971–1992

The purpose of this paper is to evaluate the accuracy of ex ante econometric model forecasts of four key macroeconomic variables: real GNP growth, the rate of price inflation measured by the GNP deflator, the civilian unemployment rate, and the Treasury Bill rate. Annual forecasts produced by the Research Seminar in Quantitative Economics (RSQE) based on the Michigan Quarterly Econometric Model of the U.S. Economy are compared with quasi ex ante forecasts from a four-variable vector autoregressive (VAR) model. Statistical tests of the equality of forecast error variances as well as univariate and multivariate forecast encompassing-type tests are conducted. The forecast error variance comparisons indicate that for three of the four variables the RSQE forecasts are more accurate than the VAR forecasts and for one of the variables (real GNP growth) only slightly less accurate. The forecast encompassing-type tests indicate that the RSQE forecasts contain information not contained in the VAR forecasts and, conversely, that VAR forecasts contain information not included in the RSQE forecasts. The scope for improving RSQE forecasts by combining them with VAR forecasts is rather limited, however.     

提高和完善我国物流规划的若干对策

从物流到供应链的发展,体现了物流对总体社会经济效率提升、对生产企业竞争力提升、对区域经济竞争力提升等方面的作用。而国内已经出台的一些新的物流规划,仍然没有摆脱传统的规划思想和规划体系,很少引入供应链的思想、综合物流规划的思想。同时物流业还存在着社会物流成本和物流需求规模难以准确判断,物流政策对物流市场培育和物流企业整合推动力不足的问题。对此,本文提出了具体的对策建议。     

区域经济协调发展的金融法控制研究

随着市场经济制度的不断完善,同时区域经济发展的差距也拉大了,虽然区域经济不协调发展的解决有多种办法,但金融法作为宏观调控居于核心地位。本文首先对区域经济协调发展金融法调控的内涵和相关的理论进行了分析,紧接着指出我国区域经济协调发展金融法调控的现状、存在的问题;最后提出完善我国区域经济协调发展金融调控法律制度的对策建议。     

中国会重蹈日本八十年代的覆辙吗

当前中国的经济形势与20世纪80年代后期的日本非常相似,本国货币持续地升值,资金大量涌入股市和房市,使股价房价大幅上涨。那么中国是否会重蹈日本的覆辙呢?比较分析表明中日有诸多不同的地方,中国处于高速增长期而日本经济处于平稳增长期,中国宏观政策稳健而日本宏观政策失当,日元大幅升值而人民币小幅缓慢升值,因此,日本泡沫破灭之后的长达十年之久的萧条不太可能在中国重演。     

Forecasting macroeconomic variables in emerging economies

Forecasting macroeconomic variables in rapidly changing emerging economies presents a number of challenges. In addition to structural changes, the time-series data are usually available only for a short number of periods, and predictors are available in different lengths and frequencies. Dynamic model averaging (DMA), by allowing the forecasting model to change dynamically over time, permits the use of predictors with different lengths and frequencies for the purpose of forecasting in a rapidly changing economy. This study uses DMA to forecast inflation and growth in Vietnam, Thailand, Philippines, Sri Lanka and Ghana. We compare its forecasting performance with a wide range of other time-series methods. We find that the size and composition of the optimal predictor set changed, indicating changes in the economic relationships over time. We also find that DMA frequently produces more accurate forecasts than other forecasting methods for both inflation and economic growth in the countries studied.     

Bayesian Vector Autoregression Forecasts of Chinese Steel Consumption

China consumed 116 million tonnes of steel in 2000, making it the largest consumer of steel in the world. China differs fundamentally from other countries at similar levels of economic development in that the secondary sector, the traditional consumer of steel products, already accounts for a significant proportion of domestic production. This suggests that little of any future growth in China's steel consumption will result from further rises in the ‘steel intensity’ of domestic production. Rather, growth in GDP will be the driving force behind future growth in steel consumption. This paper uses a macroeconomic Bayesian vector autoregression model to forecast steel consumption in China to 2010. This technique uses historical correlations among the variables in a system of equations and Bayesian priors on the estimated parameters, to introduce more flexibility into the forecasting process and align the models closer in nature to structural commodity market models. The forecasts suggest that steel consumption in China will rise from 116 million tonnes in 2000 to around 182 million tonnes in 2010.     

我国宏观经济政策的评估困境及改进路向

宏观经济政策已成为宏观经济发展最大的外生变量。由于主体界定不清、资料和经费相对不足、评估标准差异性大以及缺乏必要的保障机制,宏观经济政策评估已陷入困境。针对这些评估困境,文章认为,对宏观经济政策进行有效评估,需要经济管理部门转变观念、提高认识,加大力度调整评估体系,制定切合实际的宏观经济政策。     

上海市高技术服务业经济贡献研究

以上海市为例,以《中国统计年鉴》和《上海统计年鉴》2002-2010年度宏观经济数据为样本,实证分析高技术服务业对上海市的经济贡献。结果表明,信息传输、计算机服务和软件业的发展带动了上海市和三个产业的经济增长,科学研究、技术服务和地质勘查业的发展却起到了阻碍作用。最后提出几点政策建议。     

制度变迁过程中的消费者行为分析

在不同的经济体制下居民的消费行为特征是不同的 ,伴随着经济体制改革和制度变迁 ,我国出现了通货紧缩 ,居民有效需求不足对宏观经济稳定提出了严峻挑战。本文从分析我国消费者行为特征入手 ,提出了加快制度变迁 ,治理通货紧缩的思路。     

江苏省产业结构升级对就业结构的影响研究

作为全国的一个经济大省,受国际、国内形势的影响,2010年的江苏经济发展面临严峻的挑战。经济增长和充分就业是宏观经济发展的两大目标,而产业结构是产业之间和产业内部在社会再生产过程中形成的技术经济联系,是经济结构的核心,促进产业结构升级是实现经济增长的关键。本文运用灰色关联分析方法,从横向和纵向两个角度分析江苏省产业结构升级对就业结构的影响,在此基础上提出了促进就业结构优化的建议。     

AN ANALYSIS OF INVENTORY INVESTMENT IN SOUTH AFRICA

This paper describes the evolution of inventory investment in South Africa over the past two decades, and identifies the factors influencing inventory investment over this period. An econometric model of inventory investment in South Africa, based on the production smoothing approach, is constructed. The results of the model indicate that actual sales, production, unfilled orders, price levels, interest rates and expected sales have an influence on the evolution of inventory investment. These variables are directly or indirectly influenced by macroeconomic policy decisions and through their influence on inventory investment they also influence changes in gross domestic product. Therefore, prior information on the factors that influence inventory investment contributes to explaining changes in gross domestic product and may help to prepare more accurate short‐term forecasts of overall economic activity.     

基于复杂系统视角的经济发展方式转型评价研究——以上海市为例

文章运用综合发展指数、协调发展度和GM（1,N）模型对2000—2008年上海的经济发展方式转型进行研究,结果表明,虽然2000年以来,上海的经济发展综合指数和系统协调发展指数呈现上升趋势,但一直到2007年才真正实现经济发展方式的转型;在经济转型中,经济系统受到社会系统发展水平的制约;上海目前的社会保障对经济总量的发展存在负面作用;在所有驱动因子中,人口素质的提升与环境治理的加强对经济总量的作用最为明显;而环境保护和创新成果对经济总量的驱动作用还有潜力可挖。最后,提出相应的对策。