IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/ehl/lserod/52626.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Greece in recession: economic predictions, mispredictions and policy implications

Author

Listed:
  • Petralias, Athanassios
  • Petros, Sotirios
  • Prodromídis, Pródromos

Abstract

We look into the available macroeconomic figures and the predictions made about the recession in Greece by international organizations, Greek research centers, and the Greek government; and suggest that the predictions regarding the decline in real GDP in recent years were overly optimistic. The same entities predict that real GDP will fall by 4.2-4.6% during 2013. However, by our calculations, the drop may be steeper than the one predicted, even if some of the assumptions made by these institutes or the government materialize. We hope the steps taken will disprove the accuracy of our prediction. To that end we provide some policy recommendations.

Suggested Citation

  • Petralias, Athanassios & Petros, Sotirios & Prodromídis, Pródromos, 2013. "Greece in recession: economic predictions, mispredictions and policy implications," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 52626, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    • Handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:52626
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: http://eprints.lse.ac.uk/52626/
    File Function: Open access version.
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    Other versions of this item:

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Merola, Rossana & Pérez, Javier J., 2013. "Fiscal forecast errors: Governments versus independent agencies?," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 32(C), pages 285-299.
    2. Jean Pisani-Ferry & André Sapir & Guntram B. Wolff, . "EU-IMF assistance to euro area countries- an early assessment," Blueprints, Bruegel, number 779, June.
    3. Antipa, Pamfili & Barhoumi, Karim & Brunhes-Lesage, Véronique & Darné, Olivier, 2012. "Nowcasting German GDP: A comparison of bridge and factor models," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 864-878.
    4. Thiess Buettner & Bjoern Kauder, 2010. "Revenue Forecasting Practices: Differences across Countries and Consequences for Forecasting Performance," Fiscal Studies, Institute for Fiscal Studies, vol. 31(3), pages 313-340, September.
    5. Laurent Ferrara & Cl�ment Marsilli, 2013. "Financial variables as leading indicators of GDP growth: Evidence from a MIDAS approach during the Great Recession," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(3), pages 233-237, February.
    6. Rolf Strauch & Mark Hallerberg & Jürgen von Hagen, 2004. "Budgetary Forecasts in Europe – The Track Record of Stability and Convergence Programmes," Economic Working Papers at Centro de Estudios Andaluces E2004/42, Centro de Estudios Andaluces.
    7. Loungani, Prakash, 2001. "How accurate are private sector forecasts? Cross-country evidence from consensus forecasts of output growth," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 17(3), pages 419-432.
    8. Elena Andreou & Eric Ghysels & Andros Kourtellos, 2013. "Should Macroeconomic Forecasters Use Daily Financial Data and How?," Journal of Business & Economic Statistics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 31(2), pages 240-251, April.
    9. Schumacher Christian, 2011. "Forecasting with Factor Models Estimated on Large Datasets: A Review of the Recent Literature and Evidence for German GDP," Journal of Economics and Statistics (Jahrbuecher fuer Nationaloekonomie und Statistik), De Gruyter, vol. 231(1), pages 28-49, February.
    10. George Alogoskoufis, 2012. "Greece’s Sovereign Debt Crisis: Retrospect and Prospect," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 54, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    11. Olivier J. Blanchard & Daniel Leigh, 2013. "Growth Forecast Errors and Fiscal Multipliers," American Economic Review, American Economic Association, vol. 103(3), pages 117-120, May.
    12. repec:bla:buecrs:v:64:y:2012:i::p:s53-s70 is not listed on IDEAS
    13. Michail Kiriakidis & Antonios Kargas, 2013. "Greek GDP forecast estimates," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 20(8), pages 767-772, May.
    14. Rünstler, Gerhard & Sédillot, Franck, 2003. "Short-term estimates of euro area real GDP by means of monthly data," Working Paper Series 276, European Central Bank.
    15. Heilemann, Ullrich & Stekler, Herman, 2007. "Introduction to "The future of macroeconomic forecasting"," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 23(2), pages 159-165.
    16. Oller, Lars-Erik & Barot, Bharat, 2000. "The accuracy of European growth and inflation forecasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 16(3), pages 293-315.
    17. David O. Cushman, 2012. "Mankiw vs. DeLong and Krugman on the CEA's Real GDP Forecasts in Early 2009: What Might a Time Series Econometrician Have Said?," Econ Journal Watch, Econ Journal Watch, vol. 9(3), pages 309-349, September.
    18. Karim Barhoumi & Olivier Darné & Laurent Ferrara & Bertrand Pluyaud, 2012. "Monthly Gdp Forecasting Using Bridge Models: Application For The French Economy," Bulletin of Economic Research, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 64(Supplemen), pages 53-70, December.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Manussos Marangudakis & Kostas Rontos & Maria Xenitidou, 2013. "State Crisis and Civil Consciousness in Greece," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 77, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    2. Athanasia Chalari & Clive Sealey & Mike Webb, 2016. "A Comparison of Subjective Experiences and Responses to Austerity of UK and Greek Youth," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 102, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    3. Jordaan, Jacob A. & Monastiriotis, Vassilis, 2016. "The domestic productivity effects of FDI in Greece: loca(lisa)tion matters!," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68816, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    4. Stavros B. Thomadakis, 2015. "Growth, Debt and Sovereignty: Prolegomena to the Greek Crisis," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 91, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    5. Yannis Tsirbas & Dimitri Sotiropoulos, 2015. "What Greek political elites think about Europe and the crisis? An exploratory analysis," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 93, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    6. Nicholas APERGIS & Arusha COORAY, 2013. "New Evidence on the Remedies of the Greek Sovereign Debt Problem," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 79, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    7. Nick Papandreou, 2014. "Life in the First Person and the Art of Political Storytelling:The Rhetoric of Andreas Papandreou," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 85, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    8. Platon Monokroussos & Dimitrios Thomakos & Thomas A. Alexopoulos & Eleni Lydia Tsioli, 2017. "The Determinants of Loan Loss Provisions: An Analysis of the Greek Banking System in Light of the Sovereign Debt Crisis," Palgrave Macmillan Studies in Banking and Financial Institutions, in: Platon Monokroussos & Christos Gortsos (ed.), Non-Performing Loans and Resolving Private Sector Insolvency, chapter 9, pages 181-225, Palgrave Macmillan.
    9. Vassilis Monastiriotis & Angelo Martelli, 2013. "Beyond Rising Unemployment: Unemployment Risk, Crisis and Regional Adjustments in Greece," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 80, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    10. Rosa VAsilaki, 2016. "Policing the crisis in Greece: The others' side of the story," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 98, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    11. Chalari, Athanasia & Sealey, Clive & Webb, Mike, 2016. "A comparison of subjective experiencesand responses to austerity of UK andGreek youth," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 68585, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    12. Kougias, Konstantinos, 2017. "‘Real’ flexicurity worlds in action: evidence from Denmark and Greece," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 69576, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    13. George PETRAKOS, 2014. "Economic Crisis In Greece. European And Domestic Market And Policy Failures," Region et Developpement, Region et Developpement, LEAD, Universite du Sud - Toulon Var, vol. 39, pages 9-33.
    14. Prodromos Vlamis, 2013. "Greek Fiscal Crisis and Repercussions for the Property Market," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 76, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    15. Christodoulakis, Nicos, 2014. "The conflict trap in the Greek Civil War 1946-1949: an economic approach," LSE Research Online Documents on Economics 56228, London School of Economics and Political Science, LSE Library.
    16. Konstantinos Kougias, 2017. "‘Real’ Flexicurity Worlds in action: Evidence from Denmark and Greece," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 106, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    17. Stavros Thomadakis, Dimitrios Gounopoulos, Christos Nounis and Michalis Riginos, 2014. "Financial Innovation and Growth: Listings and IPOs from 1880 to World War II in the Athens Stock Exchange," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 86, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.
    18. Vassilis Arapoglou, Kostas Gounis, 2015. "Poverty and Homelessness in Athens: Governance and the Rise of an Emergency Model of Social Crisis Management," GreeSE – Hellenic Observatory Papers on Greece and Southeast Europe 90, Hellenic Observatory, LSE.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.
    1. repec:erc:cypepr:v:7:y:2014:i:2:p:53-80 is not listed on IDEAS
    2. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2023. "Assessing the World Bank’s growth forecasts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 64-84.
    3. Cronin, David & McInerney, Niall, 2023. "Official fiscal forecasts in EU member states under the European Semester and Fiscal Compact – An empirical assessment," European Journal of Political Economy, Elsevier, vol. 76(C).
    4. Ferrara, Laurent & Marsilli, Clément & Ortega, Juan-Pablo, 2014. "Forecasting growth during the Great Recession: is financial volatility the missing ingredient?," Economic Modelling, Elsevier, vol. 36(C), pages 44-50.
    5. Katja Heinisch & Rolf Scheufele, 2018. "Bottom-up or direct? Forecasting German GDP in a data-rich environment," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 54(2), pages 705-745, March.
    6. Beate Jochimsen & Robert Lehmann, 2017. "On the political economy of national tax revenue forecasts: evidence from OECD countries," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 170(3), pages 211-230, March.
    7. Gatti, Roberta & Lederman, Daniel & Islam, Asif M. & Nguyen, Ha & Lotfi, Rana & Emam Mousa, Mennatallah, 2024. "Data transparency and GDP growth forecast errors," Journal of International Money and Finance, Elsevier, vol. 140(C).
    8. Joseph David Barroso Vasconcelos de Deus & Helder Ferreira de Mendonça, 2015. "Empirical evidence on fiscal forecasting in Eurozone countries," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 42(5), pages 838-860, October.
    9. Zidong An & Joao Tovar Jalles, 2020. "On the performance of US fiscal forecasts: government vs. private information," Journal of Economic Studies, Emerald Group Publishing Limited, vol. 48(2), pages 367-391, June.
    10. Vasconcelos de Deus, Joseph David Barroso & de Mendonça, Helder Ferreira, 2017. "Fiscal forecasting performance in an emerging economy: An empirical assessment of Brazil," Economic Systems, Elsevier, vol. 41(3), pages 408-419.
    11. Cepparulo, Alessandra & Gastaldi, Francesca & Giuriato, Luisa & Sacchi, Agnese, 2011. "Budgeting versus implementing fiscal policy:the Italian case," MPRA Paper 32474, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    12. J. Daniel Aromí, 2018. "GDP growth forecasts and information flows: Is there evidence of overreactions?," International Finance, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 21(2), pages 122-139, June.
    13. Julia Estefania‐Flores & Davide Furceri & Siddharth Kothari & Jonathan D. Ostry, 2023. "Worse than you think: Public debt forecast errors in advanced and developing economies," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 42(3), pages 685-714, April.
    14. Yan Carrière-Swallow & José Marzluf, 2023. "Macrofinancial Causes of Optimism in Growth Forecasts," IMF Economic Review, Palgrave Macmillan;International Monetary Fund, vol. 71(2), pages 509-537, June.
    15. Cronin, David & McQuinn, Kieran, 2021. "Are official forecasts of output growth in the EU still biased?," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 43(2), pages 337-349.
    16. Paulo Júlio & Pedro M. Esperança, 2012. "Evaluating the forecast quality of GDP components: An application to G7," GEE Papers 0047, Gabinete de Estratégia e Estudos, Ministério da Economia, revised Apr 2012.
    17. Joan Paredes & Javier J. Pérez & Gabriel Perez Quiros, 2023. "Fiscal targets. A guide to forecasters?," Journal of Applied Econometrics, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 38(4), pages 472-492, June.
    18. Antipa, Pamfili & Barhoumi, Karim & Brunhes-Lesage, Véronique & Darné, Olivier, 2012. "Nowcasting German GDP: A comparison of bridge and factor models," Journal of Policy Modeling, Elsevier, vol. 34(6), pages 864-878.
    19. David Cronin & Kieran McQuinn, 2021. "Fiscal policy and growth forecasts in the EU: are official forecasters still misestimating fiscal multipliers?," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 157(3), pages 453-462, August.
    20. Stavros Degiannakis, 2023. "The D-model for GDP nowcasting," Swiss Journal of Economics and Statistics, Springer;Swiss Society of Economics and Statistics, vol. 159(1), pages 1-33, December.
    21. Dimitrios P. Louzis, 2017. "Macroeconomic and credit forecasts during the Greek crisis using Bayesian VARs," Empirical Economics, Springer, vol. 53(2), pages 569-598, September.

    More about this item

    JEL classification:

    • C22 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Single Equation Models; Single Variables - - - Time-Series Models; Dynamic Quantile Regressions; Dynamic Treatment Effect Models; Diffusion Processes
    • C33 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Multiple or Simultaneous Equation Models; Multiple Variables - - - Models with Panel Data; Spatio-temporal Models
    • C52 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Model Evaluation, Validation, and Selection
    • C53 - Mathematical and Quantitative Methods - - Econometric Modeling - - - Forecasting and Prediction Models; Simulation Methods
    • E65 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Studies of Particular Policy Episodes

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:ehl:lserod:52626. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: LSERO Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/lsepsuk.html .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.