Description

This paper examines the growth and inflation forecasts contained in the Monetary Policy Reports (MPR) of the Central Bank of Chile, comparing them with private forecast, the forecasts made by the Bank during the previous decade, and the forecasts performed by other Central Banks that follow inflation targeting frameworks. It concludes that forecast errors during the last few years have been smaller than those committed by the Bank in the past, and that although the errors in forecasting growth are marginally larger than those committed by private forecasters, they are substantially smaller in the case of inflation. Moreover, the performance of MPR forecasts is similar to those of other Central Banks, in particular when considering the different volatilities of GDP growth and inflation across countries. Although the volatility of MPR forecasts is comparable to those of other Central Banks, in the case of growth the sign of the change in the forecast has been more persistent in the case of Chile.