Breakfast with journalists - Macroeconomic projections in the CBBH

Chief Economist, Belma Čolaković, Ph.D. hosted a thematic gathering with journalists.

The aim of the meeting was to explain why central banks, especially leading ones, invest significant resources in applied economic research and projections, what they are used for, and who their users are.

Through the prism of recently published nowcasting for the first quarter of 2021, and projections for 2021 and 2022 on the CBBH website, the focus was on using projections for policy formulation, including monetary. Presenting the basic constituent blocks of the model for macroeconomic projections, the CBBH Chief Economist emphasized the connections between different macroeconomic segments, characteristics of the BH economy, and all the factors that can affect the stability and accuracy of projections.

Special attention is paid to modelling household consumption, bearing in mind the importance of this component in the structure of GDP. Journalists showed the highest interest in concrete projections on economic recovery, but also complemented the fact that the CBBH has recently done much more on projections, statistical data processing and analysis.

Specially vivid discussion was the one on factors that may affect the recovery of the economy, non-monetary factors that could result in significant inflationary pressures in the future, but also the speed of convergence towards the living standards of EU members.