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Do IMF forecasts respect Okun’s law? Evidence for advanced and developing economies

Author

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  • An, Zidong
  • Ball, Laurence
  • Jalles, Joao
  • Loungani, Prakash

Abstract

This paper provides an assessment of the IMF’s unemployment forecasts, which have not received much scrutiny to date. The focus is on the internal consistency of the IMF’s growth and unemployment forecasts, and specifically on seeing whether the relationship between the two is consistent with the relationship in the data, i.e., with Okun’s Law. We find that the average performance is good, in the sense that the relationship between growth and unemployment forecasts is fairly comparable to that which prevails in the data: on average, the Okun coefficient in the forecasts mirrors the Okun coefficient in the data. Nevertheless, there is room for improvement, particularly in the year-ahead forecasts and for the group of middle-income countries. We show that a linear combination of Okun-based unemployment forecasts and WEO unemployment forecasts can deliver significant gains in forecast accuracy for developing economies.

Suggested Citation

  • An, Zidong & Ball, Laurence & Jalles, Joao & Loungani, Prakash, 2019. "Do IMF forecasts respect Okun’s law? Evidence for advanced and developing economies," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 35(3), pages 1131-1142.
    • Handle: RePEc:eee:intfor:v:35:y:2019:i:3:p:1131-1142
    DOI: 10.1016/j.ijforecast.2019.03.001
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    References listed on IDEAS

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    1. Ball, Laurence & Jalles, João Tovar & Loungani, Prakash, 2015. "Do forecasters believe in Okun’s Law? An assessment of unemployment and output forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 31(1), pages 176-184.
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    Cited by:

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    2. Tamás Kiss & Hoang Nguyen & Pär Österholm, 2023. "Modelling Okun’s law: Does non-Gaussianity matter?," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 64(5), pages 2183-2213, May.
    3. Mindaugas Butkus & Janina Seputiene, 2019. "The Output Gap and Youth Unemployment: An Analysis Based on Okun’s Law," Economies, MDPI, vol. 7(4), pages 1-17, November.
    4. Foroni, Claudia & Furlanetto, Francesco, 2022. "Explaining Deviations from Okun's Law," CEPR Discussion Papers 17369, C.E.P.R. Discussion Papers.
    5. Gudum, Melis, 2021. "Growth Forecasts vs. Realizations: The Role of Stimulus and Stringency Measures during the Pandemic," MPRA Paper 108447, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    6. Karlsson, Sune & Österholm, Pär, 2020. "A hybrid time-varying parameter Bayesian VAR analysis of Okun’s law in the United States," Economics Letters, Elsevier, vol. 197(C).
    7. Cuesta, Lizeth, 2020. "Impacto de la política de empleo juvenil en la disminución del desempleo en los países de la Unión Europea, período 2002-2017 [Impact of youth employment policy on the reduction of unemployment in ," MPRA Paper 111026, University Library of Munich, Germany, revised 08 Aug 2021.

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