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The literature on economic forecasting, is showing an increase in criticism, of the inaccuracy of forecasts, with major implications for economic, and fiscal policymaking. Forecasts are subject to the systemic uncertainty of human systems, considerable event-driven uncertainty, and show biases towards optimistic growth paths. The purpose of this study is to consider approaches to improve economic foresight.

This study describes the practice of economic foresight as evolving in two separate, non-overlapping branches, short-term economic forecasting, and long-term scenario analysis of development, the latter found in studies of climate change and sustainability. The unique case of Ireland is considered, a country that has experienced both steep growth and deep troughs, with uncertainty that has confounded forecasting. The challenges facing forecasts are discussed, with brief review of the drivers of growth, and of long-term economic scenarios in the global literature.

Economic forecasting seeks to manage uncertainty by improving the accuracy of quantitative point forecasts, and related models. Yet, systematic forecast failures remain, and the economy defies prediction, even in the near-term. In contrast, long-term scenario analysis eschews forecasts in favour of a set of plausible or possible alternative scenarios. Using alternative scenarios is a response to the irreducible uncertainty of complex systems, with sophisticated approaches employed to integrate qualitative and quantitative insights.

To support economic and fiscal policymaking, it is necessary support advancement in approaches to economic foresight, to improve handling of uncertainty and related risk.

While European Union Regulation (EC) 1466/97 mandates pursuit of improved accuracy, in short-term economic forecasts, there is now a case for implementing advanced foresight approaches, for improved analysis, and more robust decision-making.

Building economic resilience and adaptability, as part of a sustainable future, requires both long-term strategic planning, and short-term policy. A 21st century policymaking process can be better supported by analysis of alternative scenarios.

To the best of the authors’ knowledge, the article is original in considering the application of scenario foresight approaches, in economic forecasting. The study has value in improving the baseline forecast methods, that are fundamental to contemporary economics, and in bringing the field of economics into the heart of foresight.

The use of socio-economic scenarios in small island developing states (SIDS) when assessing, and planning for, the impacts of global changes on national socioeconomic and environmental systems is still in its infancy. The research conducts a cross-scale foresight scenario exercise to produce regional scenarios and national storylines for Caribbean islands that are of “partial” consistency to the shared socioeconomic pathways (SSPs) and representative concentration pathways (RCPs) and shows how future socioeconomic and climatic changes can be applied to inform natural resource management decisions.

To develop the scenarios, the study uses a three-staged linking process using mixed methods to “triangulate” each technique to compensate for weaknesses of one method by introducing a complementary method at each stage. A participatory-expert stepwise approach with feedback loops is used and complemented with a climate sensitive tourism water demand model.

Four regional exploratory socio-economic scenarios were constructed that are partially consistent with global scenarios. In addition, national storylines for four island states were developed based on the regional scenarios. Using RCP 4.5 hotel water demand in Barbados is estimated under three of the regional scenarios based on compatibility. The results indicate there is a 17% difference between the highest and lowest estimated water demand, indicating the effect of varying socio-economic conditions on water demand.

The paper contributes to the literature by presenting regional socio-economic scenarios, specifically for SIDS, that are partially consistent with both global climatic RCPs and SSPs using a cross-scale approach. The scenarios are then used to demonstrate how future socio-economic pathways impact on freshwater demand.

What are the implications of the global financial crisis and its aftermath, regionally and globally, for Africa taking a 5‐15 year view? The purpose of this paper is to outline a set of four post‐crisis global economic scenarios to 2020, and will consider their impacts across a range of low income countries.

The scenarios were developed using a version of the morphological scenarios approach, Field anomaly relaxation (FAR). This approach creates a backdrop of internally consistent futures for policy formation and decision making through identifying and analysing the most significant drivers of change within the global financial and political system. This was then linked to a modelling approach to identify country impacts. The work was developed and tested with stakeholders in the United Kingdom and Kenya.

Scenarios are plausible, coherent, multiple views of the future, which enable policy‐makers and managers to evaluate strategy or policy choices under conditions of uncertainty. The work creates a structured approach to reviewing outcomes for growth, poverty reduction and the Millennium Development Goals for different types of developing economies, against the background of the financial crisis.

The work was conducted for a public sector client in the United Kingdom, with a limited budget and a limited timescale.

The combination of scenarios and modelling, applied to the field of development, enables greater clarity about the choices presently facing developing African nations. In particular, the economic typology used shows that for the majority of African countries, strategies which improve resilience in the face of rising energy costs and possible food shortages will also generate economic opportunities.

Innovatively, the scenarios were tightly connected to a “soft” model which identifies possible pathways, causal linkages and transmission variables between the scenarios and associated levels of economic growth and poverty reduction via key economic variables. This permits more granular interpretation of the scenario outcomes than conventional scenario analysis techniques.

This chapter considers scenarios for the development of the Russian economy in the medium term under the “new reality” conditions, with the latter implying a slowdown in China’s economic growth rate, lower commodity prices, rising geopolitical tensions, and the rapid development of digital technologies leading to the fourth scientific and technological revolution. The results of scenario calculations show that the implementation of the economic growth target scenario requires targeted efforts to increase human capital, increase investment in fixed assets and innovation, export diversification, and achieve perfection in the quality of political and economic institutions. Sustainable growth of 3% per year in the medium term is possible only with the restructuring of the economy; otherwise, even with favorable conditions in the commodity markets and higher efficiency of the existing economic system, it is impossible to achieve high rates of economic growth necessary to significantly improve the quality of life.

This paper aims to present a systematic methodology to study different economic labor policies and their impacts on women and families. As women entered into the labor market, the traditional division of family labor vanished. Now, families need to make the best decision to both improve the family economy and enhance family's main functions. In addition, the government is responsible toward the consequences of the family policies.

The content analysis, fuzzy cognitive map, scenario-planning and vlse kriterijumsk optimizacija kompromisno resenje (VIKOR) have been combined to deal with the studied problem. As a case study, the focus has been on the Iranian family. According to the developed methodology, different family-oriented policies have been simulated and their results are analyzed.

Findings show, considering the effects that the division of the couples’ labor has on meeting the material/non-material family needs, the best policy is to support women's home-based businesses. This way, the economic factors will be improved, the couples’ dependence on meeting their needs will be more favorably affected and the family unity will be strengthened.

In this study, “family” has been analyzed as a single socioeconomic system. Never have the family economic studies been analyzed with a systematic approach by considering all the economic and non-economic factors together. This objective can be realized by applying the methodology proposed in this research because it can help to predict the consequences of any policy toward the family and provide a platform for proposing better policies and making the related decisions in this area.

This chapter studies the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on the economic structure of the US and EU economies by measuring its impact on some reference macro-economic variables. We use a factor model approach on a set of variables available at different frequencies (daily, weekly, monthly, and quarterly) and provide evidence of instability in the primary factors driving the economy. A sequential analysis of the factors allows us to evaluate the model's forecasting performance and extract some instability measures based on the factor model's eigenvalues. Finally, we show how to use COVID-related variables, such as policy, economic, and health indicators, to compute conditional forecasts with factor models, and perform a scenario analysis on the variables of interest to understand economic instability.

This disguised case aims to describe a scenario planning project to improve decision making for a manufacturer operating in Brazil's confusing, unpredictable politico‐economic environment. “BrasilAuto's” management team faced a range of complex choices related to capacity, vehicle mix, pricing, distribution, dealer relationships, exports, labor and government relations.

The consultants used a combination of scenario planning and quantitative analysis to answer the company's two key questions: where is the country headed and how many vehicles can we expect to sell, looking across a range of business environments?

As a result of the scenario exercise, company execs had a better idea of what to watch for in the political sphere and how to anticipate the actual market impact of changing economic policy options. Having looked at the range of plausible business environments hard and carefully, their uncertainty was significantly less unsettling or paralyzing than it had been.

The consultants discuss the lessons learned – for the client and for improving the process.

It's rare to have an insider's view of a scenario process that attempts to produce both quantitative and qualitative insights into a range of distinctly different political/economic futures and their impact on an industry.

Aims to present a pragmatic method for long‐term forecasting and to illustrate its usage with the results of a recent case study to forecast future demand for mobile communications services.

A scenario construction methodology is explained in detail. The case material presented here is drawn from a forecasting exercise for the European Commission between September 2004 and April 2005 examining potential demand for mobile communications services up to 2020.

The formalized method and a synopsis of the actual scenarios generated in the case study are given here in outline. The paper also indicates how needs analysis was used in conjunction with the scenarios to generate a list of potential services and their use, which formed the basis of detailed traffic estimates. Certain aspects of the method and its results have been incorporated by the ITU working committees into their detailed preparations for the World Radiocommunication Conference's negotiations in 2007.

This paper can only give a brief description of the scenarios and provides only limited detail on how the scenarios were subsequently used to generate forecasts of demand for mobile communication services.

The paper demonstrates a socio‐economic forecasting method based on scenarios and their use in forecasting demand within the telecommunications sector.

In light of the increased level of uncertainty in the economy, and the need for companies to make critical short‐term strategic and tactical decisions under these stressful conditions, the paper aims to propose that short‐term economic scenarios can help managers cope with uncertainty.

The paper asserts that there is no logical reason why a scenario approach must be restricted to extremely long‐term decisions; nor is there any legitimate bar to using scenario planning to make short‐term economic decisions in an uncertain, recessionary environment.

The Futures Strategy Group has developed a set of four customizable short‐term economic scenarios called the Recession/Recovery Decision Matrix ™.

It is precisely now, when in a painful recession management is bogged down in “the tyranny of the present,” that scenario planning is especially crucial.

These scenarios, which cover quite a broad range of plausible recession/recovery eventualities, allow clients to perform due diligence on short‐term, critical decisions within a brief period of time.

This chapter elaborates on the perspectives of financial development of countries of Central Asia and China through cooperation with Russia. The authors determine financial resources for the development of the countries of Central Asia and China and figure out possible scenarios for attracting additional financial resources and conclude that financial resources have a decisive role in socioeconomic development. It is substantiated that the increase and expansion of cooperation with Russia are the preferable scenario for attracting additional financial resources. The authors recommend expanding cooperation with Russia within the implementation of the selected optimal scenario are given.