THE SAFE WAY TO MAKE ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS.

THE SAFE WAY TO MAKE ECONOMIC PREDICTIONS. Kids, this is a very unusual time for economic forecasters. Most of the time the best formula to predict what is going to happen in the economy for the next six months is the same formula that works best for predicting what will happen in the upcoming baseball season: predict more of the same. What happened in the last period will happen again. The formula won’t give you give the best forecast, but it is a tough standard to beat. Economists have not had much success in predicting turning points (the end of a boom or the end of a recession), so the safest prediction is not to try to identify a turning point. Now the question can’t be avoided: will there be a recession in the next six months?