An evaluation of real GDP forecasts: 1996–2001
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.
