“Has the Economy Become More Predictable? Changes in Greenbook Forecast Accuracy”

DATA FILES

(all ascii text files are tab delimited)

GDP forecasts through 2002q4 as cumulative percent change; *xls, *.txt

Actual (real-time) GDP growth; *xls, *.txt

PGDP forecasts through 2002q4 as cumulative percent change; *xls, *.txt

Actual real-time change in PGDP deflator; *xls, *.txt

note that GDP and PGDP files have different formatting (e.g. the dating convention differs)

INPUT FILES (Eviews program files)

to run these you need to save data files in excel (or rewrite the "read" command for ascii format), change the directory on line 3, then run

read_gdp.prg - reads forecasts and actuals of GDP.

read_pgdp.prg - reads forecasts and actuals of PGDP.

PROGRAMS (Eviews program files)

jmcb_tests.prg -- calculates results in tables 1, 2 and 3 for either GDP or PGDP. Having read in either GDP or PGDP data, change directory name in line 1, then set !table equal to 1, 2 or 3 in line 3; then run. This will call the subroutine:

andrews.prg -- calculates Andrews-Ploberger tests

charts.prg -- constructs GDP charts. PGDP charts involve minor and obvious changes to titles etc.