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About survey

NBP Survey of Professional Forecasters

The NBP Survey of Professional Forecasters aims at collecting macroeconomic forecasts of various groups of professional forecasters. It is directed at analysts of the financial sector, representatives of universities and scientific institutes as well as experts of employee and employer organisations. The survey is conducted on a quarterly basis: in March, June, September and December.

Main survey questions

The main questions of the survey relate to forecasts of CPI inflation and GDP growth for different time horizons. Experts who participate in the survey are asked to consider various scenarios of economic developments and to provide - on the basis of the conducted analysis - the range of possible values and a central point forecast for those variables.

Additional questions

Additional questions relate to the forecasts of the NBP reference rate, exchange rate, unemployment rate, average wage growth, oil prices and GDP growth in the euro area. Except for the first of those variables, additional questions concern point forecasts.

Survey website

The website of the survey is used for both conducting the survey and publishing the results. The principal method of presenting the results is by scatter graphs showing medians and interquantile ranges of individual CPI and GDP forecasts. This makes it possible to assess the degree of the consensus as regards future values of the variables. Additionally, aggregate forecasts are the result of averaging individual probability distributions.

The website provides access to full archives of individual forecasts, which are kept anonymous and are marked with the forecaster's code only. Survey participants have access to time series of their individual forecasts. The website also presents analytical materials concerning the NBP Survey of Professional Forecasters.

Survey questionnaire

Questionare of the survey taken in III quarter 2011:

NBP Survey of Professional Forecasters (ID: e201102)

Q3 2011

Guidelines on completing the form

The survey concerns projections related to selected macroeconomic variables in different time horizons. For quarterly year-on-year indices these are the next year and the year following it. For annual indices, we ask about the current year and the following two years, and for some variables - additionally about the nearest five years. The main questions of the survey are provided in the part A of the questionnaire. They concern CPI inflation and GDP growth. In the part B, we ask for complementary forecasts.

Questions related to CPI inflation, GDP growth and the NBP reference rate are probabilistic.

We would like you to consider possible macroeconomic scenarios, think about how probable they are according to your subjective assessment and provide the central forecast and the range of possible values on the basis thereof.

The central forecast

is the value for which the occurrence of lower and higher values is equally probable. Put it another way, it is the median (50th percentile) of your subjective probability distribution. It is marked with ”50” index (INF ₅₀for the median of the CPI inlation forecast, GDP ₅₀for the median of the GDP forecast, REF ₅₀for the median of the NBP reference rate forecast).

The range of forecasted values

is an interval to which you assign the probability of 0.9 and the probabilities of the occurrence of values below its lower and upper endpoints are each 0.05. Therefore, the lower endpoint of the interval is the 5th percentile and the upper endpoint - the 95th percentile of your subjective probability distribution. The lower endpoint is marked with ”05” index (INF ₀₅, GDP ₀₅, REF ₀₅) the upper endpoint - with ”95” index (INF ₉₅, GDP ₉₅, REF ₉₅).

For complementary questions about CPI inflation and GDP growth, please provide point forecasts.

We would like you to provide values of the variables consistent with your central forecasts for inflation and growth.

Forecast horizons in the current edition of the NBP Survey are as follows:

quarters: Q3 2012, Q3 2013;
years: 2011, 2012, 2013 and the period from: 2011 - 2015.

Data available upon the current survey:

CPIinflation (%)............( year-on-year)
GDPgrowth(%)............( year-on-year)

A. CPI inflation and GDP growth forecasts

A1. CPI inflation (%)

In a quarter (current year quarter on preceding year corresponding quarter) :

2012 Q3 : INF ₀₅ = INF ₅₀ = INF ₉₅ =
2013 Q3 : INF ₀₅ = INF ₅₀ = INF ₉₅ =

In a year (annual average) :

2011 : INF ₀₅ = INF ₅₀ = INF ₉₅ =
2012 : INF ₀₅ = INF ₅₀ = INF ₉₅ =
2013 : INF ₀₅ = INF ₅₀ = INF ₉₅ =

During the period of the nearest 5 years (annual average) :

2011 - 2015 : INF ₀₅ = INF ₅₀ = INF ₉₅ =

A2. GDP growth (%)

In a quarter (current year quarter on preceding year corresponding quarter) :

2012 Q3 : GDP ₀₅ = GDP ₅₀ = GDP ₉₅ =
2013 Q3 : GDP ₀₅ = GDP ₅₀ = GDP ₉₅ =

In a year (annual average) :

2011 : GDP ₀₅ = GDP ₅₀ = GDP ₉₅ =
2012 : GDP ₀₅ = GDP ₅₀ = GDP ₉₅ =
2013 : GDP ₀₅ = GDP ₅₀ = GDP ₉₅ =

During the period of the nearest 5 years (annual average) :

2011 - 2015 : GDP ₀₅ = GDP ₅₀ = GDP ₉₅ =

B. Complementary forecasts

B1. NBP reference rate

In a quarter (average) :

2012 Q3 : REF ₀₅ = REF ₅₀ = REF ₉₅ =
2013 Q3 : REF ₀₅ = REF ₅₀ = REF ₉₅ =

In a year (average) :

2011 : REF ₀₅ = REF ₅₀ = REF ₉₅ =
2012 : REF ₀₅ = REF ₅₀ = REF ₉₅ =
2013 : REF ₀₅ = REF ₅₀ = REF ₉₅ =

During the period of the nearest 5 years (average) :

2011 - 2015 : REF ₀₅ = REF ₅₀ = REF ₉₅ =

B2. CPI and GDP determinants

If the following variables were important while formulating the forecasts from the part A, we would like you to provide the values assumed while estimating the central forecasts for inflation and growth.

Average values in the year	2011	2012	2013
EUR to PLN exchange rate
Registered unemployment rate (%)
Nominal annual growth of the total average gross wages and salaries (%)
Brent oil prices in USD/barrel
Annual GDP growth in the euro area (%)

B3. Other inflation and GDP determinants which are especially important in the current forecasting cycle (please comment):

Analytical materials concerning the NBP Survey of Professional Forecasters

Background Materials

version: 2.2