Q4 GDP Growth of 0.5%
Thursday, January 28, 2016 at 10:40AM Click here for our Clash of the Titans page.
Q4 '15 GDP Growth: 0.5%
Average Prediction: 0.6%
Number of Correct Forecasts: 99/558
Highest Oil Price: 37 (5th Jan)
Competition Progress: 11.5% complete
GDP growth in the final quarter of 2015 was just 0.5%, roughly equal to the quarterly growth rate we've seen all year. This means that annual growth in 2015 was 2.2%, lower than the 2.9% rate in 2014 and the general consensus forecasts of 2.4% (including by the World Bank). Once again, UK growth was driven by the services sector, with both construction and production (including manufacturing) providing small downward influences on the growth rate.
Almost one hundred of our forecasters correctly predicted the Q4 growth rate of 0.5%, with the average forecast not far off at 0.6%. More than half of all forecasts were between 0.4% and 0.6%, while a greater proportion of the predictions were higher than the outcome than were lower than it. The average forecast for the rest of the year is for quarterly growth to stay at around the same level, hovering between 0.5% and 0.6% per quarter.
Of our three Titans, Oxford's Jonathan Portes was the closest with a forecast of 0.6%. Jonathan is the most pessimistic of the three experts, predicting that the growth rate will fall over the course of 2016 to just 0.3%. His relative accuracy in this quarter has pushed him into a very close second, equal on points with LSE's Rain Newton-Smith (who forecast a growth rate of 0.7%). It is still very early in the competition, but a gap has opened up with Cambridge's Dr Sean Holly, who thought the growth rate might be as high as 0.9% (the required rate to match the consensus forecasts for annual growth).
It is important to remember that this is only a preliminary estimate, which may be revised in the coming months (the next possible date when it might be revised is 25th February). We'll update the competition if any changes are made.
Click here for a summary of the results so far, or here for the full standings.