Is the economy growing, and what does the model expect next?

One model in the suite forecasts UK output: boe-svar, the Bank of England structural VAR replication. The round generated 2026-07-29 conditions on data through 2026Q1 and puts year-on-year growth at 1.1% in 2026Q2, 68% 0.6%–1.7% — and in the same breath:

• Status: validated replication for selected outputs.
• It cannot answer statutory policy reform effects.
• Uncertainty is posterior 68% and 90% intervals — the bands are the forecast, not decoration.
• Estimated on 1992Q1-2025Q1 but conditioned on 2026Q1 data, so the estimation sample stops well short of the quarters being forecast.

Predictive validation: weak. Against a no-change random walk the model looked strong on CPI (0.63 at h=1), but a driftless walk on a trending log level is too weak a benchmark: against a random walk WITH DRIFT the CPI ratio becomes 0.83 at h=1 and 1.03 at h=8, i.e. no better than naive. Bank Rate is the one series that improves under the harder benchmark (0.79 at h=1, p=0.018) and is the defensible forecasting claim. UK GDP is not distinguishable from either benchmark (p=0.38-0.67), and excluding six Covid-target origins its ratio falls to 0.77. The frozen-edge run gives 0.32pp RMSE from a single origin. Read the validation page →

Every round is archived before the outturn exists, and scored against the vintage it was made on — see the record →

Quarterly national accounts are revised for years after first publication, which is why the snapshot date matters as much as the observation period.

The snapshot files are append-only and never edited, so a number published here can be reproduced against the data as it stood — browse the store, its release calendar, and the as-of recipe →