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Forecasting the economic recession in the U.K. 1979‐1982: A comparison of model‐based ex ante Forecasts
Author(s) -
Barker Terry
Publication year - 1985
Publication title -
journal of forecasting
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.543
H-Index - 59
eISSN - 1099-131X
pISSN - 0277-6693
DOI - 10.1002/for.3980040204
Subject(s) - recession , unemployment , economics , ex ante , business cycle , government (linguistics) , econometrics , great recession , macroeconomics , keynesian economics , linguistics , philosophy
This paper compares the forecasts of recession and recovery made by five non‐government U.K. teams modelling the economy (Cambridge Econometrics, the London Business School, the National Institute of Economic and Social Research, the Cambridge Economic Policy Group and the Liverpool Research Group). The paper concentrates on annual ex ante projections as published over the period 1978‐1982, i.e. forecasts made, before the event, of the onset, length, depth and character of the economic recession in the U.K. which began in 1979. The comparison is in terms of year by year changes in production, unemployment, prices and other variables. It concludes that no group was systematically better or worse than other groups (confirming U.S. experience) and that the groups tended to perform better in their chosen areas of specialization, e.g. medium‐term groups did better at forecasting the medium‐term outcome.