How did forecasters respond to the American growth slowdown of the mid-2000s?

摘要

Worldwide growth has slowed down in the mid-2000s. This paper both confirms this result for the United States and looks at how four major forecasting organizations responded to this slowdown in GDP growth. Real GDP is unambiguously and consistently below its forecasted level and so forecast errors are persistently positive for all forecasters, consistent with a growth slowdown that forecasters were slow to acknowledge. In response to this slowdown, all forecasters overestimated growth but eventually downgraded their forecasts. We also consider overall forecaster accuracy given this GDP growth slowdown.