The British Association for the Advancement of Science’s (BAAS) Annual Festival of Science takes place from 13-17 September at Sheffield University. This year, the President of the Economics Section is Professor David Hendry of Nuffield College at the University of Oxford and former President of the Royal Economic Society. The programme features a series of presentations on economic forecasting by leading researchers and practitioners.

Wednesday 15th September:

• 2.15pm How Economists Forecast - Presidential Address
  Professor David Hendry, Nuffield College, Oxford
• 3.15pm A New Approach to Evaluating Economic Forecasts
  Professor Clive Granger, University of California, San Diego
• 4.15pm Forecasting Business Cycles in the UK
  Professor Denise Osborn, University of Manchester
  5pm Sources of Forecast Uncertainty
  Neil Ericsson, US Federal Reserve Board
  
  Thursday 16th September:
  
• 10am Forecasting the World Economy: The Value of Research
  Ray Barrell, Senior Research Fellow, National Institute of Economic and Social Research (NIESR)
• 11.15am Economic Forecasting at the Bank of England
  Neal Hatch, Head of Conjunctural Assessment & Projections Division, Bank of England
• 12pm Making Sense of Economic Forecasts
  Diane Coyle, Economics Editor, The Independent
• 1pm Costs of Forecasting Error
  Lord Burns, formerly permanent secretary, HM Treasury

Media briefings on some of the presentations are attached. Journalists are welcome to attend the conference on any or all of the days. The presentations will be in Lecture Theatre 3 of the Hicks Building at the University of Sheffield.

For Further Information: contact Royal Economic Society (RES) Media Assistant Niall Flynn at CEPR on 0171-878-2919 (email: nflynn@cepr.org); or RES Media Consultant for Economics Romesh Vaitilingam on 0117-983-9770 or mobile 0468-661095 (email: romesh@compuserve.com).