Economic Forecasting and National Accounts Training Course

Participants can interpret GDP through production, expenditure and income accounting identities.

• System of National Accounts 2008 sequence of accounts and institutional sectors
• Production approach measures gross value added, taxes and subsidies
• Expenditure identity separates consumption, investment, government spending and net exports
• Income approach tracks compensation, operating surplus and mixed income
• Gross domestic product contrasted with gross national income and net measures
• Statistical discrepancies investigated before drawing conclusions from GDP components

Participants can identify sectoral and expenditure drivers behind aggregate growth outcomes.

• Supply and use tables reconcile products, industries and final demand
• Contribution-to-growth calculations separate sectoral effects from aggregate growth
• Industry value added interpreted alongside output, intermediate consumption and productivity
• Household consumption drivers include income, credit, confidence and price effects
• Gross fixed capital formation analysed by asset type and institutional sector
• Import content assessed when domestic demand growth exceeds domestic production

Participants can convert and interpret nominal series in real and volume terms.

• Current-price values separated from volume measures and price changes
• GDP deflator compared with consumer, producer and import price indices
• Chain-linking preserves changing expenditure weights in volume growth measures
• Base-year changes identified before comparing historical real GDP series
• Terms-of-trade movements distinguished from domestic output price developments
• Real income effects assessed using purchasing power and deflated earnings

Participants can assess whether reported movements reflect signal, revision or measurement change.

• Release calendars mapped against flash estimates, preliminary data and benchmarks
• Revision triangles measure how early estimates change through successive releases
• Seasonal adjustment separates recurring calendar effects from underlying movement
• X-13ARIMA-SEATS diagnostics reviewed for outliers, trading days and breaks
• Annualisation conventions checked before comparing quarterly and annual growth rates
• Metadata reviews identify rebasing, reclassification and methodology changes

Participants can build transparent driver-based forecasts for GDP, inflation and demand components.

• Driver trees link forecast variables to observable economic and policy factors
• Bridge equations combine monthly indicators with quarterly national accounts outcomes
• Nowcasting uses timely surveys, trade data and high-frequency administrative indicators
• Elasticities estimate responses of consumption, imports and revenues to growth
• Distributed lags capture delayed effects of rates, prices and fiscal measures
• Judgement overlays documented separately from model-generated forecast values

Participants can select, estimate and compare suitable univariate forecasting methods.

• Trend, seasonality and cyclical components decomposed before model specification
• Moving averages smooth volatile monthly series without imposing structural relationships
• Exponential smoothing estimates level, trend and seasonal forecast components
• ARIMA models specified using stationarity, autocorrelation and partial autocorrelation
• Autoregressive distributed lag models incorporate explanatory variables and lags
• Model selection compares parsimony, residual diagnostics and out-of-sample performance

Participants can incorporate policy settings and external accounts into macroeconomic projections.

• Fiscal multipliers assessed by spending type, capacity and financing conditions
• Tax revenue forecasts connect tax bases, compliance assumptions and nominal growth
• Policy-rate changes transmitted through credit, exchange rates and domestic demand
• Balance of payments accounts link trade, income flows and financial transactions
• Exchange-rate assumptions tested against inflation differentials and capital flows
• External debt indicators examined alongside reserve adequacy and refinancing needs

Participants can construct internally consistent baseline, upside and downside forecast scenarios.

• Baseline scenarios state policy, commodity, demand and financial-market assumptions
• Shock narratives specify size, timing, duration and affected transmission channels
• Sensitivity analysis quantifies forecast changes under alternative key assumptions
• Scenario matrices connect risks to indicators, probabilities and response actions
• Fan charts communicate uncertainty ranges without implying false precision
• Cross-account checks test consistency among GDP, inflation, fiscal and external projections

Participants can evaluate forecast performance and produce a concise forecast pack for decision-makers.

• Back-testing compares historical forecasts with realised data across multiple vintages
• Mean absolute error and root mean squared error measure accuracy
• Bias analysis identifies persistent overforecasting or underforecasting patterns
• Forecast scorecards distinguish data surprises, model failures and judgement errors
• Executive charts show central projections, risks, drivers and confidence ranges
• Application plans establish update ownership, challenge meetings and escalation thresholds