Abstract: Because of the lags in the transmission of monetary policy to the economy, policy must necessarily be forward-looking. As such, reliable forecasts of inflation and output growth are important inputs into the decision-making process.
      This paper develops a real-time data set to better represent the information actually available to forecasters at the time forecasts are made. The paper then uses the real-time and revised datasets to examine the Bank's ability to forecast short-run output growth over the past decade as well as the impact of data revisions. The Bank's performance is analyzed for evidence of systematic bias (in the aggregate and for specific GDP components) and for potential improvements over the sample period. Finally, the results are compared to market consensus forecasts.