PREDICTION OF FINAL DATA WITH USE OF PRELIMINARY AND OR REVISED DATA/

In the case of US national accounts the data are revised for the first few years and every decade, which implies that we do not really have the final data. In this paper we aim to predict the final data, using the preliminary data and/or the revised data. The following predictors are introduced and derived from a context of the non-linear filtering or smoothing problem, which are: (1) prediction of the final data of time t given the preliminary data up to time t-1, (2) prediction of th e final data of time t given the preliminary data up to time t, (3) pr ediction of the final data of time t given the preliminary data up to time T, (4) prediction of the final data of time t given the revised d ata up to time t-1 and the preliminary data up to time t-1, and (5) pr ediction of the final data of time t given the revised data up to time t-1 and the preliminary data up to time t. It is shown that (5) is th e best predictor but not too different from (3). The prediction proble m is illustrated using US per capita consumption data.