An evaluation of real GDP forecasts: 1996-2001

Abstract

During the second half of the 1990s, forecasters made large and persistent underpredictions of GDP growth; subsequently, they missed the drop off into the recession of 2001. Forecasters do not appear to have behaved unusually during this period: Their out-period forecasts were not far from their perceptions of longer-run trends. This suggests that the forecast errors in 1996-2001 likely reflected some unusual behavior in the economy.Gross domestic product