the publication of a huge swathe of academic research on forecast accuracy. Empirical studies show that pooling forecasts increased forecast accuracy. One of the advantages of using consensus forecasts is that it can prove useful if there is a high degree of uncertainty or risk attached to the situation and the selection of the most accurate forecast in advance is difficult. Even if one method is identified as the best, combining is still worthwhile if other methods can make some positive contribution to the forecast accuracy. Moreover, many factors can affect the independent forecast and these, along with any additional useful information, might be captured by using the consensus approach. Another argument in favour of this method is that individual forecasts may be subject to numerous behavioural biases, but these can be minimised by combining independent forecasts together. Hence, combining is seen as helping to improve forecast accuracy by reducing the forecast errors of individual forecasts. Furthermore, averaging forecasts is likely to be more useful when the data and the forecasting techniques that the component forecasts are drawn from differ substantially. And even though it is only a simple approach (typically an unweighted mean average), this method is just as useful as other more sophisticated models. Indeed, more recent studies in the past decade have shown that, over time, the equal weights combined forecast is usually more accurate than the individual forecast which make up the consensus. In sum, the usefulness of the consensus forecast technique has been supported by a wealth of empirical studies in recent decades. The use of equal weights in the combining method is appealing because of its simplicity and is easy to describe. Among others, this simple method of averaging the forecasts of individual forecasters has been put into practice by many of the world's central banks as they try to gauge expectations in the private sector. An empirical study carried out by Roy Batchelor in 2000 demonstrates greater accuracy in the consensus forecasts over macroeconomic projections produced by leading multinational agencies such as the International Monetary Fund and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development. A study by Robert C. Jones found: "At least since the publication of “The Combination of Forecasts” (Bates and Granger [1969]), economists have known that combining forecasts from different sources can both improve accuracy and reduce forecaster error. In the intervening years, numerous studies have confirmed these conclusions, outlined