Department of Economics

Australian Economic Review Doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/1467-8462.70076

BI Business Review

Handelshøyskolen BI

Central banks publish projection paths, but these need not be optimal summaries of the information used to form them. We reframe conditional macroeconomic forecasting as an input problem: a fixed, pre-trained multivariate foundation time-series model reads the institution’s historical predictions and announced future paths alongside target histories, rather than imposing the path as a model-consistent restriction inside a locally estimated system. The mapping nests the Mincer–Zarnowitz and Granger–Ramanathan regressions as its parametric-linear special case. Reading just Norges Bank’s published path triple and target histories, the map cuts mean squared error against the Bank on inflation across horizons, and the nested combination regression puts the conditional weight on the map, not the path. A hard-conditioned VAR matched on the same future paths, but blind to the prediction record, is consistently outperformed on the rate and inflation, and the result survives the asymmetric-loss specifications that best rationalise the path. The VAR contrast replicates on Sweden and New Zealand; the institutional comparison only on New Zealand, with parity at best on Sweden. An institutional-learning regression rationalises the split: the Riksbank absorbs its recent misses more aggressively than Norges Bank and the RBNZ, leaving less residual signal to extract.

University of Stavanger

University of Stavanger

This note sets out the research agenda and a parsimonious first design for a large-scale, multicountry survey experiment on citizens’ awareness of, attitudes toward, and preferences for nature-based solution (NBS) programmes in Europe. Stated-preference research on NBS is now substantial but dominated by site-specific contingent valuation and choice experiments focused on flood adaptation; experimental vignette designs, cross-country comparisons, and systematic variation in the problem NBS are meant to solve are largely absent. We propose a Stage 1 vignette experiment, embedded in a multi-stage elicitation framework, in which respondents evaluate three national NBS programmes—one addressing each strand of the triple planetary crisis (climate change, biodiversity loss, pollution)—whose benefit type, economic proposition, and required individual behaviour are randomized. Each programme is evaluated along an increasing commitment gradient: general support, an advisory referendum on a stated national budget, a household willingness-to-pay (WTP) decision, and a WTP amount. A between-respondent information experiment varies the salience of each crisis and of their interconnection. We state five research questions, testable hypotheses, the estimation strategy, and power considerations for samples of 1,000–2,000 respondents per country.