QUARTERLY ECONOMIC FORECASTS
In addition to their annual forecasts, we regularly ask our country panellists to provide short-term economic forecasts for the next 8 quarters. We undertake special surveys of quarterly forecasts across our publications Consensus Forecasts, Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts, Latin American Consensus Forecasts and Eastern Europe Consensus Forecasts at regular intervals throughout the year and the resulting tables and analysis are displayed in both the hard-copy and PDF versions of the publications.
Quarter-by-quarter forecasts are updated every March, June, September and December (in Consensus Forecasts and Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts), May and November (in Eastern Europe Consensus Forecasts) and June and December (in Latin American Consensus Forecasts). Below is a list of countries for which we collect quarterly forecasts. Furthermore, quarter-by-quarter forecasts for the US economy are updated monthly in our publication Consensus Forecasts - USA.
| Consensus Forecasts | Asia Pacific Consensus Forecasts |
Latin American Consensus Forecasts |
Eastern Europe Consensus Forecasts |
|---|---|---|---|
| United States | Australia | Argentina | Czech Republic |
| Japan | China | Brazil | Hungary |
| Germany | Hong Kong | Chile | Poland |
| France | India | Mexico | Russia |
| United Kingdom | Indonesia | Venezuela | Turkey |
| Italy | Japan | Colombia | Bulgaria |
| Canada | Malaysia | Peru | Croatia |
| Euro zone | New Zealand | Estonia | |
| Netherlands | Philippines | Latvia | |
| Norway | Singapore | Lithuania | |
| Spain | South Korea | Romania | |
| Sweden | Taiwan | Slovakia | |
| Switzerland | Thailand | Slovenia | |
| Ukraine |
Download Sample Issues
The table below shows a sample of the data from one of our surveys for Quarter-by-Quarter forecasts in Germany (from our March 2011 Consensus Forecasts survey).
| GERMANY | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| *% Change over previous year |
2010 | 2011 | 2012 | |||||||||
| Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | Q1 | Q2 | Q3 | Q4 | |
| GDP*2 | 2.1 | 3.9 | 3.9 | 4.0 | 4.1 | 2.4 | 2.2 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 1.9 | 1.9 | 2.0 |
| % Change Qtr/Qtr | 0.6 | 2.2 | 0.7 | 0.4 | 0.8 | 0.6 | 0.5 | 0.4 | 0.6 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.4 |
| Private Consumption*2 | -0.5 | -0.6 | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.6 | 1.5 | 1.3 | 1.5 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 | 1.4 |
| % Change Qtr/Qtr | 0.2 | 0.4 | 0.5 | 0.2 | 0.5 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 | 0.4 | 0.3 | 0.3 | 0.4 |
| Industrial Production* | 6.1 | 12.2 | 10.3 | 11.1 | 10.7 | 6.0 | 5.1 | 3.8 | 3.7 | 3.5 | 3.3 | 3.2 |
| Consumer Prices* | 0.7 | 1.1 | 1.2 | 1.5 | 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.2 | 2.1 | 1.8 | 1.8 | 1.9 | 1.9 |
| 3-month Euro Rate, %1 | 0.6 | 0.8 | 0.9 | 1.0 | 1.2 | 1.4 | 1.7 | 1.8 | 2.0 | 2.1 | 2.3 | 2.5 |
1 %, End-period. 2 Quarterly data (source: Bundesbank) are working-day adjusted.
Despite the y-o-y pace of economic activity decelerating from 3.2% in Q3 to 2.7% in Q4, GDP forecasts for the United States show a strong trend over the next eight quarters. Part of this is due to a resurgent industrial sector, thanks to the competitive US dollar and relatively robust global demand. On the domestic front, too, personal consumption saw a 2.6% (y-o-y) acceleration in the final three months of 2010 which could be further boosted by the extension of Bush-era tax breaks this year and gradually recovering job fundamentals. However, there are concerns on the horizon, including political infighting over how to cut the massive budget deficit. Surging agricultural and energy prices have also added a note of uncertainty to the CPI outlook, with inflation projected to accelerate over the next three quarters. Price pressures have also noticeably increased for the Euro zone countries, as well as the United Kingdom, Canada and Sweden (see the change in quarterly inflation expectations for some of these economies on page 2). Turmoil in some oil-exporting Arab nations has even raised fears of another potential oil price shock. UK inflation is especially high when compared with its neighbours, despite average wages remaining muted. Meanwhile, austerity measures are taking their toll on the UK GDP outlook, a situation replicated in parts of the Euro zone where an increasingly unsustainable fiscal situation has hit Spain’s credit ratings in particular. Japan could well see a hit to GDP growth following last week’s devastating earthquake and tsunami (although these have not really affected our panel’s overall projections just yet). Deflationary pressures are expected to abate, though, on the back of energy price surges and the expectation of looser monetary conditions.
Text from Consensus Forecasts, March 14, 2011.