ECO 6214: Applied Business & Economics Forecasting

This article from the Corporate Finance Institute explains how economists, businesses, and investors use statistical methods and past data (such as GDP growth, housing starts, retail sales, etc.) to anticipate future economic conditions.

The Survey of Current Business (SCB) has served since the early 1920s as the journal of record for the U.S. Bureau of Economic Analysis (BEA), offering a variety of articles monthly, including detailed presentations about recent data releases, explanations of annual and benchmark updates, explanations of key methodologies, updates about in-development data sets, relevant research by BEA economists, briefings on key issues, and ongoing statistical and related innovations in general. Tables, charts, and links to interactive data sets, which include charting and mapping functions, are included with just about every article.

BEA’s national economic statistics provide a comprehensive view of U.S. production, consumption, investment, exports and imports, and income and saving. These statistics are best known by summary measures such as gross domestic product (GDP), corporate profits, personal income and spending, and personal saving.

Bureau of Labor Statistics: The Consumer Price Index (CPI) is a measure of the average change over time in the prices paid by urban consumers for a market basket of consumer goods and services. Indexes are available for the U.S. and various geographic areas. Average price data for select utility, automotive fuel, and food items are also available.

The Economic Census is the official five-year measure of businesses in the United States providing comprehensive statistics at the national, state, and local levels. It serves as the benchmark for current economic activity, such as the Gross Domestic Product and Producer Price Index.

Consensus Economics, founded in 1989, is the world’s leading international economic survey organization and polls more than 700 economists each month to obtain their latest forecasts and views.

The European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters collects information on from economists on the expected rates of inflation, real GDP growth and unemployment in Europe.

The Livingston Survey was started in 1946 by the late columnist Joseph Livingston. It is the oldest continuous survey of economists' expectations. It summarizes the forecasts of economists from industry, government, banking, and academia.

The European Central Bank's Survey of Professional Forecasters collects information on from economists on the expected rates of inflation, real GDP growth and unemployment in Europe.

The World Bank publishes this annual report which can be downloaded as a PDF.

The Congressional Budget Office regularly publishes reports presenting its baseline projections of what the federal budget and the economy would look like in the current year and over the next 10 years if current laws governing taxes and spending generally remained unchanged. This report is the latest in that series.

Published by the Conference Board, an organization of business and economic leaders and analysts who provide insight into what's ahead. The Global Economic Outlook provides forecasts of the world economy and regional economies for the near and more distant future (10 years).

The OECD Economic Outlook presents the OECD’s analysis of the major short-term global economic trends and prospects. The Outlook provides projections across a range of variables for all member countries, the euro area, and selected non-member countries.

This is a Survey by the International Monetary Fund that is usually published twice a year. It presents IMF staff economists' analyses of global economic developments during the near and medium term.