Training Programme on ‘Short-term Forecasting at Central Banks’ and ‘Inflation Targeting Practices’ at the Central Bank of Turkey
Date: 25-29 November 2013
Venue: Istanbul - Türkiye

Statistical Economic and Social Research and Training Centre for Islamic Countries (SESRIC) organised, in cooperation with Istanbul School of Banking, two consecutive training programmes on ‘Short-term Forecasting at Central Banks’ and ‘Inflation Targeting Practices’ in Istanbul, Turkey, on 25-29 September 2013, within the framework of OIC Central Banks Capacity Building Programme (OIC-CB-CaB). The short term forecasting course was provided by Mahmut Günay and M. Utku Özmen and the inflation targeting practices course was provided by Salih Fendoğlu, Mahmut Günay and M. Utku Özmen with the participation of relevant members of Central Banks of Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Jordan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia, Uganda and Yemen.

The training course on "Short-term Forecasting at Central Banks" mainly covered the following areas:

  • Short-term inflation and GDP forecasting
  • Some empirical aspects of short-term forecasting
  • Construction and estimation of basic univariate and multivariate inflation forecasting models
  • Techniques for modelling unobserved components
  • Handling mixed frequency and ragged data in GDP forecasting
  • Exploiting the information content of soft data

The training course on "Inflation Targeting Practices" mainly covered the following areas:

Section 1. Inflation

  • Inflation dynamics: Theory and recent practices
  • Imported inflation: Import and exchange rate pass-through
  • Assessment of demand side factors: Output gap
  • Short-term inflation projections
  • Turkey’s experience in comparison with global experiences

Section 2. Real Economy

  • Monitoring of the real economy
  • Review of main indicators from the real economy (National income aggregates, production, imports, exports, employment)
  • Surveys (Business Tendency Surveys, PMIs, Consumer Confidence Surveys)
  • Short-term forecasting: Univariate analysis, dynamic factor models

Section 3. Unified Theoretical Model and Operational Framework

  • The Quarterly Projection Model (QPM): Aggregate demand management, New-Keynesian

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