Economic decisions cannot wait for perfect data. Policy-makers, businesses, journalists and families all need a timely read on the economy. But the key data often arrive late, and they change as more information comes in.
The new UCL MacroMonitor is designed to close that gap. Launched in June 2026, it is a new research initiative from UCL’s Department of Economics, led by Daniel Lewis, Raffaella Giacomini and Lars Nesheim, with support from a team of PhD students. The MacroMonitor provides public, regularly updated signals on UK growth and inflation, using modern statistical methods developed by researchers at UCL.
Reading the economy before the data settle
The MacroMonitor focuses on two questions: how fast is the UK economy growing now, and how persistent are inflation pressures?
For GDP, the dashboard produces a weekly ‘nowcast’ – a forecast of the present. The model combines information from 22 indicators, including industrial production, retail sales, trade, unemployment, consumer confidence and business surveys.
Each Monday, the GDP nowcast is revised as new information becomes available, and the dashboard shows how data releases from the past week contributed to those changes. This makes the dashboard useful not just for tracking growth, but for understanding which pieces of news are changing the picture.
For inflation, the dashboard looks past monthly noise to estimate the more persistent part of price growth. It does this across 11 categories of the traditional consumer price index (CPI), showing whether inflationary pressure is broad-based or concentrated in areas such as energy, food or services. A temporary spike in one sector tells a very different story from a rise in prices spreading across the economy.
Why real-time signals matter
Public debate about the economy moves fast. After a budget, an interest rate decision, an energy price shock or a surprise survey release, people want to know what it means. Is growth slowing? Are price pressures easing? Is the latest number a turning point, or just noise?
The MacroMonitor offers a disciplined way to interpret those signals. The GDP nowcast is evaluated using real-time data, so the test uses only the information that would have been available at the time.
The model of inflation is tested in a similar spirit. It performs well against standard statistical benchmarks at many time horizons, and its trend-based version is especially useful for understanding core inflation over the medium term.
No model can remove uncertainty. But the MacroMonitor makes it visible by reporting uncertainty around the growth and inflation estimates produced by the model, rather than only publishing point estimates. This helps to clarify whether a signal is strong or if the outlook is more tentative.
A public signal for better decisions
Many economic forecasts sit inside institutions or behind paywalls. The UCL MacroMonitor is public, transparent and built around academic methods. The idea is to give policy-makers, journalists and the wider public a shared reference point for UK growth and inflation.
That matters because noisy data can lead to confused debate. Decision-makers need to know whether an inflationary surprise reflects a lasting shift or a temporary spike. Journalists and the public need a clear way to interpret economic news as it arrives.
Economic data are slow, but economic decisions are not. The UCL MacroMonitor helps to bridge that gap.
