in the forecast values where a forecaster misses a forecast the missing forecast is replaced by the last submitted forecast for up to three periods following the last submitted forecasts unchanged forecasts whether naturally unchanged or generated by replacement forecasts are adjusted by taking into account the rate of change of the consensus from the previous monthly survey application_number US 8334205 A description according to various embodiments of the present invention a number of methods are provided to address problems with the consensus forecasts which are presented below as processing carried out at a number of levels fig3 illustrates an example structure of a computer program configured to carry out the processing a computer 10 for example an intel u2122 processor based machine running a windows u2122 operating system comprises a processor 11 and memory 12 for storing the program 13 according to various embodiments of the invention the computer runs a database application 14 which stores the economic forecasts received from the forecasters the program according to one embodiment of the invention communicates with the database 14 and operates at a number of levels 1 5 which are described in detail below the consensus figure shown in publications such as those illustrated in fig1 which is simply the mean of all the forecast values for a given indicator is generally provided as a rounded figure for example rounded to one decimal place this figure is referred to herein as the level 1 consensus forecast although presented as a rounded figure at level 1 the consensus forecast is of course calculated to several decimal places and more accuracy can be achieved by using a greater number of decimal places.