How do the OECD Growth Projections for the G7 Economies Perform?

The quality of the OECD's Economic Outlook growth projections was last evaluated in-house at the peakof the previous business cycle, calling for a reassessment. This paper analyses the OECD's annual GDPgrowth projections for the G7 countries over the period 1991-2006 and compares them with the ConsensusEconomics forecasts. It shows that OECD growth projections display a number of desirable features:projections for the current year are unbiased and efficient projection errors tend to shrink as the horizonshortens and projections are directionally accurate most of the time. Like those produced elsewhere, theOECD projections also suffer from shortcomings: one-year-ahead projections display a positive bias,mainly reflecting a propensity to overpredict during slowdowns spring one-year-ahead projections are farless informative than autumn ones and turning points are poorly anticipated one year ahead. Regressiontests suggest that the OECD and Consensus add value to naïve forecasts for spring current-year andautumn one-year-ahead projections.