Forecasting inflation is a staple of macroeconomic modeling, yet virtually all economists’ predictions for the United States in 2021 were way off the mark. This dismal performance reflected a collective failure to take economic models seriously enough, as well as other analytical shortcomings.
CAMBRIDGE – In 2008, as the global financial crisis was ravaging economies everywhere, Queen Elizabeth II, visiting the London School of Economics, famously asked, “Why did nobody see it coming?” The high inflation of 2021 – especially in the United States, where the year-on-year increase in consumer prices reached a four-decade high of 7% in December – should prompt the same question.
CAMBRIDGE – In 2008, as the global financial crisis was ravaging economies everywhere, Queen Elizabeth II, visiting the London School of Economics, famously asked, “Why did nobody see it coming?” The high inflation of 2021 – especially in the United States, where the year-on-year increase in consumer prices reached a four-decade high of 7% in December – should prompt the same question.