Category Archives: Uncategorized

Ed Lazear Comments on Government Forecasts

Or, the self-rehabilitation effort continues. In a WSJ op-ed entitled “Government Forecasters Might as Well Use a Ouija Board”, he writes:

My analysis of 1999-2013 reveals that the CBO’s real GDP growth forecasts for the next year were off, on average, by 1.7 percentage points, either too high or low. Administration forecasts were similarly off by a slightly larger 1.8 percentage points on average, also to high or too low. Given that the average growth rate during this period was only 2.1%, errors of this magnitude are substantial.

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Thank Goodness Wisconsin Turned Down High Speed Rail!

From “Fast trains, supply networks, and firm performance” in VoxEU:

We find that sales and measured productivity rose substantially for firms near the new (high speed rail) stations after the opening. Firms in industries with greater purchased input shares outperformed firms in industries with lower purchased input shares.

So Wisconsin dodged the fate of having higher firm productivity.

The report is authored by Bernard, Moxnes, and Saito.

Update, 10/1 12:26PM Pacific: And here is the IMF’s assessment of the role of infrastructure investment. Not that I expect it to convince all the folks who think we should privatize all roads, airports, harbors, and train service…