THE GOVERNMENT OF THE REPUBLIC OF SLOVENIA
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
SLOVENIA
IMAD Institute of Macroeconomic Analysis and
Development
OECD Meeting of Senior Budget Officials from Central-Eastern European Countries
Bucharest, 9-10 April 2008
Marijana Bednaš
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Main activities

Monitoring and forecasting economic trends
– Slovenian Economic Mirror – SEM (monthly )
– Spring and Autumn Forecast (official forecast)
– Economic Issues (assessment of fiscal developments)

Participating in government decision making
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–
–
–

Slovenia’s Development Strategy
Development Report (annual )
participating in key government bodies and documents
EU: Lisbon strategy, Economic Policy Committee
Research
– working papers, Social Report (biannual ), occasional books
– international cooperation (conference, projects)
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Organisation

Over 60 people in 5 sectors
 Horizontal working teams
–
–
–
–

forecasting
balance of payments
public finance
labor market and human resources
Project groups
 Organisation is always partly result of reason and
partly result of habits
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Sectors

Macroecomic analysis and economic policy
– macroeconomic policies
– trends and forecasts of agregate demand components and
prices
– synthetical and ad hoc reports

Economic competitiveness and structural changes
– analysis of competitiveness and its factors (RR, ICT,
knowledge investment, unit costs, entreprenuership,
infrastructure, regulations, environment)
– sectoral trends and forecasts
– structural changes
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Sectors

Welfare and social development
– social welfare and quality of life
– reforms of the welfare state and social policy
– long term sustainability

Quantitative analysis and national accounts
– national accounts
– economic modeling
– Statistics

General services
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Legal status

Office of the government, directly responsible to
prime minister
– formerly office within a ministry
– director is a public servant, nominated by gvt for 5 years

Statutorily secured independence in forecasting
and analysis
 In reality, independence depends on
–
–
–
–
credibility
personality
competition
conservative communication
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Legislation

IMAD is obliged by a government act, which defines its legal
status, to make professional and unbiased forecast

Decree on the Documents of Development Planning and the
Criteria and Procedures for Preparing the Draft National Budget
- forecasts are prepared twice a year
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Transparency

Transparency of forecasts is provided by detailed analytical
explication and extensive statistical appendix

Realisation of forecasts is monitored through regular analyses,
results published in SEM
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Independence – validity assessment of
IMAD’s forecasts
 A comparison with the forecasts made by other forecasting
institutions repeatedly shows that the IMAD is successful in
forecasting economic categories
 Measures of quality (the mean error - ME) for IMAD show that
there’s no systematic divergence from the actual figures, which
indicates no-bias approach (forecasts do not systematically
under- or overestimate the actual value of the variable)
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Independence – validity assessment of
IMAD’s forecasts
Real GDP growth 2007
Year ahead autumn forecast
Current year spring forecast
Current year autumn forecast
Forecast
Error (p.p)
Forecast
Error (p.p)
Forecast
Error (p.p)
Actual
6,1
-
6,1
-
6,1
-
IMAD
4,3
1,8
4,7
1,4
5,8
0,3
DEAEP
4,3
1,8
4,5
1,6
5,9
0,2
BoS
4,2
1,9
4,6
1,5
5,7
0,4
IMF
4,0
2,1
4,5
1,6
5,4
0,7
EC
4,2
1,9
4,3
1,8
6,0
0,1
WIIW
4,0
2,1
4,5
1,6
5,0
1,1
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Independence – validity assessment of
IMAD’s forecasts
Inflation (average) 2007
Year ahead autumn forecast
Current year spring forecast
Current year autumn forecast
Forecast
Error (p.p)
Forecast
Error (p.p)
Forecast
Error (p.p)
Actual
3,6
-
3,6
-
3,6
-
IMAD
2,7
0,9
2,2
1,4
3,4
0,2
DEAEP
2,5
1,1
2,5
1,1
3,5
0,1
BoS
2,6
1,2
2,7
1,1
3,3
0,5
IMF
2,3
1,3
2,7
0,9
3,2
0,4
EC
2,5
1,3
2,6
1,2
3,5
0,3
WIIW
2,4
1,2
2,6
1,0
2,6
1,0
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Independence – validity assessment of
IMAD’s forecasts
Year ahead – autumn forecast
ME
MAE
MAE/SD
RMSE
RMSE/SD
0,77
0,71
0,87
0,76
0,76
1,03
1,14
1,20
1,23
1,23
0,90
0,83
1,06
0,89
0,89
0,44
0,65
1,38
1,68
0,53
0,73
Real economic growth
IMAD, 1997-2007
IMAD, 2002-2007
DEAEP, 1997-2007
BoS, 2002-2007
EC, 2002-2007
0,32
0,38
0,27
0,65
0,58
0,88
0,98
0,98
1,05
1,05
Nominal economic growth
IMAD, 1997-2007
IMAD, 2002-2007
0,32
0,21
1,15
1,50
INSTITUTE OF MACROECONOMIC ANALYSIS AND DEVELOPMENT
Independence – validity assessment of
IMAD’s forecasts
Year ahead – autumn forecast
ME
IMAD, 1997-2007
IMAD, 2002-2007
DEAEP, 1997-2007
EC, 2002-2007
MAE
Average inflation
0,28
0,05
0,54
0,32
0,80
0,65
0,98
0,92
MAE/SD
RMSE
RMSE/SD
0,32
0,33
0,40
0,47
1,10
0,81
1,33
1,03
0,45
0,41
0,54
0,53
0,67
0,65
0,30
2,09
1,48
0,75
0,91
0,79
0,42
Year-on-year inflation
IMAD, 1997-2007
IMAD, 2002-2007
BoS, 2002-2007
0,76
0,42
0,30
1,54
1,22
0,53