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Get EFO economy projections

Source: R/efo.R
get_efo_economy.Rd

Downloads (and caches) the OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook Detailed Forecast Tables - Economy file and returns quarterly economic projections for a chosen measure in tidy long format.

Usage

get_efo_economy(
  measure = c("inflation", "labour", "output_gap"),
  refresh = FALSE,
  vintage = NULL
)

Arguments

measure

Character. Which economy table to return. One of "inflation", "labour", or "output_gap". Defaults to "inflation".

refresh

Logical. If TRUE, re-download even if a cached copy exists. Defaults to FALSE.

vintage

Optional EFO vintage label such as "October 2024". If supplied, the function downloads the file for that specific EFO. If NULL (the default), the function uses any vintage set via obr_pin(), or falls back to the latest live EFO via the dynamic URL resolver.

Value

An obr_tbl with the standard v0.4.0 schema (columns: period, period_type, series, metric_type, value, unit):

period

Calendar quarter, e.g. "2025Q1" (character)

period_type

Always "quarter" for this function (character)

series

Variable name, e.g. "CPI" (character)

metric_type

One of "index", "yoy_pct", "pct", "level", classified from the series name. This is the v0.4.0 fix for the v0.3.x issue where, e.g., CPI Index values and CPI YoY values shared a single value column with no machine-readable distinction.

value

Numeric value in units described by unit

unit

One of "index", "pct", etc., paired with metric_type

Details

Data run from 2008 Q1 through the current forecast horizon. Use list_efo_economy_measures() to see all available measures.

See also

Other EFO: get_efo_fiscal(), get_efo_table(), list_efo_economy_measures(), obr_efo_catalogue()

Examples

# \donttest{
op <- options(obr.cache_dir = tempdir())
inf <- get_efo_economy("inflation")
#> ℹ Downloading efo_economy.xlsx from OBR...
#> ✔ Saved to cache.
inf[inf$series == "CPI", ]
#> # obr_tbl: 186 rows x 6 cols
#> # Source:       OBR Economic and Fiscal Outlook, March 2026
#> # URL:          https://obr.uk/download/march-2026-economic-and-fiscal-outlook-detailed-forecast-tables-economy/
#> # Retrieved:    2026-05-07 21:08:35 UTC
#> # File MD5:     da58dba1f8d3
#> # Package:      obr 0.5.0
#> 
#>     period period_type series metric_type    value unit
#> 183 2008Q1     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 2.375720  pct
#> 184 2008Q2     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 3.419723  pct
#> 185 2008Q3     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 4.838841  pct
#> 186 2008Q4     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 3.824052  pct
#> 187 2009Q1     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 3.005551  pct
#> 188 2009Q2     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 2.088718  pct
#> 189 2009Q3     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 1.489726  pct
#> 190 2009Q4     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 2.103189  pct
#> 191 2010Q1     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 3.274537  pct
#> 192 2010Q2     quarter    CPI     yoy_pct 3.456674  pct
#> # ... with 176 more rows

lab <- get_efo_economy("labour")
#> ℹ Loading from cache. Use `refresh = TRUE` to re-download.

# Compare CPI projections from two different EFOs
inf_oct24 <- get_efo_economy("inflation", vintage = "October 2024")
#> ℹ Downloading efo_economy_october_2024.xlsx from OBR...
#> ✔ Saved to cache.
inf_mar26 <- get_efo_economy("inflation", vintage = "March 2026")
#> ℹ Downloading efo_economy_march_2026.xlsx from OBR...
#> ✔ Saved to cache.
options(op)
# }