Assignment:
You will write a 2 page executive summary of a professional forecast that is publicly available.
Motivation: Your boss, the CEO or CFO of a large company, is concerned about the macroeconomy. She has asked you to assess one publicly available forecasting report.
Goal: Your goal is to describe the information available in the forecasting report and assessing context for when this information will be useful (or not) to your boss.
You will need to include the following information in your executive summary.
• What variable or variables are forecasted?
• How far into the future are forecasts made (forecast horizon)?
• How often are forecasts updated?
• When is the report released?
• How are forecasts made? What is the methodology?
• Are there assumptions that are made when making the forecasts? If so, briefly explain.
• When did these forecasts start? How long has forecasts been available? What is your evaluation of how effective this report is?
• In what context(s) would this report be helpful to your boss? Briefly explain.
• In what context(s) would this report not be helpful to your boss? Briefly explain.
• Include one graph that you think best describes the success or failure of this report. Explain the graph briefly.
Sources: You need at least 2 sources. One should be the website of the reporting agency and the other can be a scholarly article or publication of the International Monetary Fund, Federal Reserve System, or peer-reviewed journal (e.g., JSTOR).
Executive summaries analyze and condense information that is found in another document or documents and places all the information in a short, easily readable document for another reader.
Executive summary resources:
• University of Maryland University College:
• University of Wollongong:
• Ashford University: