Quick answer … No
To answer this question, we develop new testing methods for identifying superior forecasting skills in settings with arbitrarily many forecasters, outcome variables, and time periods. Our methods allow us to address if any economists had superior forecasting skills for any variables or at any point in time while carefully controlling for the role of “luck” which can give rise to false discoveries when large numbers of forecasts are evaluated. We propose new hypotheses and test statistics that can be used to identify specialist, generalist, and event-specific skills in forecasting performance. We apply our new methods to a large set of Bloomberg survey forecasts of US economic data show that, overall, there is very little evidence that any individual forecasters can beat a simple equal-weighted average of peer forecasts.
More here – SSRN
PS: I posted this because I have just slagged off the more bizarre aspects of technical analysis so it seemed only fair to include more traditional forecasters and predictors. It also ties in nicely with a conversation I have been having with a friend who is still involved in research regarding the uselessness of most journals and most of the articles within journals. The breaking point for us came when we discovered that the number of papers with more than 1,000 authors had exploded in recent years.
The paper above didn’t really need to be written you simply had to look at the forecasts generated by economist over recent years and then compare then to actual outcomes – it probably would have taken 10 minutes on the internet.
PPS: I lied it only took two minutes on the internet. Even the IMF can’t predict a thing.
Source – Why Are Economists So Bad at Forecasting Recessions
