A comparison between the models one happens to have written down answers a narrow question: which of them fits and forecasts best. It does not answer whether any of them is worth using. The benchmark for that is the forecast somebody actually published and was held to. This post runs that comparison for Austria, where three Bayesian VAR models compete against the projections of the European Commission, the ECB, the IHS, the IMF, the Austrian central bank and WIFO – and against the simplest competitor of them all, which is to carry the last observation forward.