Friday 30 January 2009

Lies, damned lies and forecasts?

Hopi Sen has an excellent reminder on his blog of how much weight we ought to give to predictions from the IMF . As he puts it:
Back in July, the IMF thought US growth would be 1.7% in 2008, and 1.4% in 2009. The Eurozone would grow by 1.7% and 1.2% in the same time period, while for the UK the figures would be 1.8% and 1.7%. In Japan, growth would be evenly distributed with 1.5% growth in both years. Less than six months later, and the figures are all startlingly different. Japan goes from 1.5% to an economic decline of 0.3% and is expected to decline by another 2.6% in 2009. 2008 Eurozone growth drops from 1.7% to 1% and then to -2 in 2009. The UK goes to 0.7% and-2.8 while the US drops to 1.% growth in 2008 and a decline of 1.1% in 2009.

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