forthcoming>>
In the New Year, Consensus Economics will be surveying panellists for their 2010 Forecast Probabilities to assess the risk of non-consensus outcomes.
A Balanced Approach
A consensus forecast is a simple arithmetic average of all of the individual predictions collected by Consensus Economics for a single economic indicator in one of our monthly surveys. Each month we ask the world's leading forecasters for their predictions for more than 1,000 variables from over 80 nations in Industrialised Countries, Eastern Europe, Asia Pacific and Latin America. Incoming survey responses are then processed using proprietary software and checked for accuracy, completeness and integrity. For the principal countries covered, our publications show the estimates of individual panellists for each economic indicator, along with the average or 'consensus' forecast.
The table below shows a small sample of the data from one of our surveys of forecasts for the United States (in this case, from our December 7, 2009 survey).
| Forecasters For The United States |
Gross Domestic Product |
Consumer Price Inflation |
||
| % change over previous year | 2009 | 2010 | 2009 | 2010 |
| First Trust Advisors | -2.4 | 3.9 | -0.3 | 3.2 |
| Econ Intelligence Unit | -2.4 | 2.5 | -0.5 | 1.2 |
| Univ of Michigan - RSQE | -2.5 | 2.3 | -0.3 | 2.6 |
| Moody's Economy.com | -2.5 | 2.2 | -0.4 | 1.7 |
| Eaton Corporation | -2.5 | 2.5 | -0.5 | 2.2 |
| JP Morgan | -2.5 | 3.2 | -0.4 | 1.7 |
| The Conference Board | -2.5 | 1.9 | -0.4 | 2.4 |
| Bank of America - Merrill | -2.5 | 3.2 | -0.3 | 2.5 |
| Barclays Capital | -2.5 | 3.5 | -0.3 | 2.2 |
| Credit Suisse | -2.5 | 3.3 | -0.3 | 1.7 |
| DuPont | -2.5 | 3.2 | -0.3 | 2.5 |
| Fannie Mae | -2.5 | 2.9 | -0.3 | 2.0 |
| IHS Global Insight | -2.5 | 2.2 | -0.3 | 1.7 |
| RDQ Economics | -2.5 | 2.9 | -0.4 | 2.8 |
| Wells Fargo | -2.5 | 2.2 | -0.4 | 1.8 |
| Ford Motor Corp | -2.5 | 3.0 | -0.3 | 2.0 |
| Morgan Stanley | -2.5 | 2.8 | -0.3 | 2.6 |
| Goldman Sachs | -2.5 | 2.1 | -0.3 | 1.9 |
| General Motors | -2.5 | 2.7 | -0.3 | 2.2 |
| Nat Assn of Home Builders | -2.5 | 2.9 | -0.4 | 1.7 |
| Oxford Economics | -2.5 | 2.6 | -0.4 | 2.1 |
| Northern Trust | -2.6 | 2.2 | -0.3 | 2.6 |
| Swiss Re | -2.6 | 2.5 | -0.3 | 1.9 |
| Georgia State University | -2.6 | 1.5 | -0.4 | 1.4 |
| Inforum - Univ of Maryland | -2.6 | 2.6 | -0.3 | 2.4 |
| Wells Capital Mgmt | -2.6 | 2.8 | -0.4 | 2.1 |
| Consensus (Average) | -2.5 | 2.7 | -0.4 | 2.1 |
| Last Month's Mean | -2.4 | 2.7 | -0.4 | 2.0 |
| 3 Months Ago | -2.6 | 2.4 | -0.5 | 1.9 |
| High | -2.4 | 3.9 | -0.3 | 3.2 |
| Low | -2.6 | 1.5 | -0.5 | 1.2 |
| Standard Deviation | 0.0 | 0.5 | 0.1 | 0.5 |