Historical Forecasts

These data tables contain the central estimates of the Bank's historical forecasts for consumer price inflation, underlying inflation, GDP growth and the unemployment rate since 1990. The corresponding outcomes (or ‘actuals’) and forecast errors are also reported. The Bank publicly releases these data with a one-year lag and they are updated annually after the release of the December quarter National Accounts. They are presented in two formats:

1. In forecast date by event date format, with separate sheets for each variable. Changes in data sources and variable definitions (as explained in Abbreviations tab) are described in column titles.
2. The forecast date by horizon format, with a separate file for each variable:
   • CPI inflation (year-ended)
   • Underlying inflation (year-ended)
   • GDP growth (quarterly growth)
   • Unemployment rate (level)

   Within each file there are separate sheets for forecasts, actuals and errors. Timing is by date of the forecast, not date of the last observation. Therefore, the column labelled ‘Quarter t’ is the quarter in which the forecast was made and the column labelled ‘t’ is the current-quarter forecast. Data sources and variable definitions are in row titles.

Note that formatting and quantity of these data change over time, reflecting changes in source data. Detailed explanatory notes on the data can be found in Appendix B of Tulip and Wallace (2012), Estimates of Uncertainty around the RBA's Forecasts, RBA Research Discussion Paper, RDP2012-07.