2016, The Economist examined country forecasts made by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) in its Spring World Economic Outlook. Of the 207 recessions – defined as a fall in output between the year in which the forecast was made and the following year – the World Economic Outlook had predicted precisely none of them.25 This finding is a stunning indictment of our ability to forecast movements in aggregate economic activity. It seems that we can forecast changes in GDP when there
