CERF Blog

Written October 21, 2022 The fundamental question for the U.S. macroeconomic forecast is if the pandemic recovery can continue or if the economy is heading into a recession. This outcome will be determined largely by Federal Reserve actions during the quarters ahead. Given how long the Fed waited to fight the current bought of inflation,… Read more

Here’s what the OECD has to say about the global economy: But the global economy can be characterised (sic) as only achieving a muddling-through “B-minus ” grade. Global growth in the first quarter of 2015 was weaker than in any quarter since the crisis. And although this softness is seen as transitory, productivity growth continues… Read more

Fourth quarter United States GDP contracted by about $5 billion dollars, which is 0.1 percent negative growth annualized. This is after 3.1 percent growth in the third quarter which was the strongest quarter in 2013. The largest drivers of the fourth quarter decline were a contraction in government spending of 6.6 percent and a change… Read more

The first release of GDP data came out this morning with an advance estimate of 2.2 percent growth for quarter 1. Contributions of growth from the major components were: Consumption Expenditures                       2.04 Investment Expenditures                           0.77           Fixed Investment                             0.18           Inventory                                          0.59 Government Expenditures               … Read more

Forecasting is always difficult. It is even more difficult when the data keep changing. This year, we’ve been plagued by very large adjustments to GDP data. Most have been downward adjustments, but a few have been upward adjustments. Productivity has been the source of most of the changes. Jobs data get revised too, but we… Read more

Previously published September 28 in the “California Economic Forecast”: The saga of the Great Recession continues. Over six million people have been unemployed for more than 27 weeks, and job growth may be slow enough in the next few months that the unemployment rate rises again. Major revisions to GDP, released in late July, show… Read more

We’ve seen more and more forecasters and analysts revising their forecast down. In fact, after being among the lowest for years, we’re now almost consensus. Remember, they came to us. Downward revisions to United States gross domestic product (GDP) have driven most of the revisions. For about two years, we had trouble with the original… Read more

Until today, we’ve been confident that we could avoid a double-dip recession.  Too be sure, we’ve acknowledged that risks abound, particularly in the Middle East and in the Eurozone.  However, the recovery seemed to be proceeding about as we had expected, slowly, certainly slower than most forecasts. We believed that the United States economy, absent… Read more

Previously published March 22, 2011 in the California Economic Forecast I mentioned in the United States Highlights essay that the fourth quarter consumption growth rate of 4.1 percent, the strongest in five years, was a surprise given weak economic fundamentals. I also discussed the evidence of significant heterogeneity across U.S. regions. I would argue that… Read more

Previously published March 21, 2011 The Recent Evidence The United States economy continues to surprise me. Fourth quarter real consumption growth of over four percent, the fastest growth rate in five years, seems anomalous in the face of many fundamentals. I remind myself and the reader that one quarter’s worth of data does not make… Read more