Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://hdl.handle.net/10419/226036 
Year of Publication: 
2020
Series/Report no.: 
Working Papers of the Priority Programme 1859 "Experience and Expectation. Historical Foundations of Economic Behaviour" No. 26
Publisher: 
Humboldt University Berlin, Berlin
Abstract: 
I evaluate German export growth and import growth forecasts published by eight professional forecasters for the years 1971 to 2019. The focus of the evaluation is on the weak and strong efficiency as well as the unbiasedness of the forecasts. To this end, I use a novel panel-data set and estimate fixed-effects models taking into account panel-corrected standard errors. For the full time period, I find that both export and import growth forecasts are weakly but not strongly efficient. Unbiasedness depends on the forecast horizon being analyzed, with longer-term four-quarter-ahead forecasts being biased. I, furthermore, check for a possible change in forecasting behavior after incisive economic events in recent German history. I find that the strong efficiency of the forecasts did not change substantially over time. However, there is a change in forecasting behavior regarding the weak form of efficiency after the financial crisis 2008/2009.
Subjects: 
Trade forecasts
German economic research institutes
Forecast Efficiency
Panel Data
JEL: 
C53
F17
F47
Persistent Identifier of the first edition: 
Document Type: 
Working Paper

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