IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/p/pra/mprapa/108447.html
   My bibliography  Save this paper

Growth Forecasts vs. Realizations: The Role of Stimulus and Stringency Measures during the Pandemic

Author

Listed:
  • Gudum, Melis

Abstract

This paper investigates the relationship between different institutions’ GDP growth forecasts for the year 2020 and the actual realized growth levels in the same year. To this end, we use data from the IMF and World Bank’s publications and show that on average, an economy has overperformed its expected growth rate when i) the sizes of announced fiscal and macro-financial stimulus measures are larger, ii) The extent of the government stringency measures is smaller, iii) the pre-pandemic level of GDP per capita is larger. Our results can be crucial for policy-makers when they design growth-oriented economic policies.

Suggested Citation

  • 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.
    • Handle: RePEc:pra:mprapa:108447
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://mpra.ub.uni-muenchen.de/108447/1/MPRA_paper_108447.pdf
    File Function: original version
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. Frank-Oliver Aldenhoff, 2007. "Are economic forecasts of the International Monetary Fund politically biased? A public choice analysis," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 2(3), pages 239-260, September.
    2. Roy Batchelor, 2001. "How useful are the forecasts of intergovernmental agencies? The IMF and OECD versus the consensus," Applied Economics, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 33(2), pages 225-235.
    3. 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.
    4. Axel Dreher & Silvia Marchesi & James Vreeland, 2008. "The political economy of IMF forecasts," Public Choice, Springer, vol. 137(1), pages 145-171, October.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    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. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2023. "Assessing the World Bank’s growth forecasts," Economic Analysis and Policy, Elsevier, vol. 77(C), pages 64-84.
    2. Rybacki, Jakub, 2021. "Does International Monetary Fund Favor Certain Countries During the Fiscal Forecasting – Evidence of the Institutional Biases?," MPRA Paper 107681, University Library of Munich, Germany.
    3. 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.
    4. Frenkel, Michael & Rülke, Jan-Christoph & Zimmermann, Lilli, 2013. "Do private sector forecasters chase after IMF or OECD forecasts?," Journal of Macroeconomics, Elsevier, vol. 37(C), pages 217-229.
    5. Eicher, Theo S. & Kawai, Reina, 2023. "IMF trade forecasts for crisis countries: Bias, inefficiency, and their origins," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(4), pages 1615-1639.
    6. Katja Heinisch & Axel Lindner, 2019. "For how long do IMF forecasts of world economic growth stay up-to-date?," Applied Economics Letters, Taylor & Francis Journals, vol. 26(3), pages 255-260, February.
    7. Eicher, Theo S. & Rollinson, Yuan Gao, 2023. "The accuracy of IMF crises nowcasts," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 39(1), pages 431-449.
    8. Ruben Atoyan & Patrick Conway, 2011. "Projecting macroeconomic outcomes: Evidence from the IMF," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 6(3), pages 415-441, September.
    9. Dreher, Axel & Lang, Valentin F. & Richert, Katharina, 2019. "The political economy of International Finance Corporation lending," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 140(C), pages 242-254.
    10. Michael R Frenkel & Jan C Rülke, 2013. "Is the ECB's monetary benchmark still alive?," Economics Bulletin, AccessEcon, vol. 33(2), pages 1204-1214.
    11. Frank Bohn & Jan-Egbert Sturm, 2021. "Do expected downturns kill political budget cycles?," The Review of International Organizations, Springer, vol. 16(4), pages 817-841, October.
    12. Hamza Bennani & Cécile Couharde & Yoan Wallois, 2024. "The effect of IMF communication on government bond markets: insights from sentiment analysis," Review of World Economics (Weltwirtschaftliches Archiv), Springer;Institut für Weltwirtschaft (Kiel Institute for the World Economy), vol. 160(2), pages 615-656, May.
    13. Kersting, Erasmus K. & Kilby, Christopher, 2016. "With a little help from my friends: Global electioneering and World Bank lending," Journal of Development Economics, Elsevier, vol. 121(C), pages 153-165.
    14. Rossana Merola & Javier J. Pérez, 2012. "Fiscal forecast errors: governments vs independent agencies?," Working Papers 1233, Banco de España.
    15. Yoichi Tsuchiya, 2024. "Conservatism and information rigidity of the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development's growth forecast: Quarter‐century assessment," Journal of Forecasting, John Wiley & Sons, Ltd., vol. 43(5), pages 1399-1421, August.
    16. Drechsel, Katja & Giesen, Sebastian & Lindner, Axel, 2014. "Outperforming IMF Forecasts by the Use of Leading Indicators," VfS Annual Conference 2014 (Hamburg): Evidence-based Economic Policy 100393, Verein für Socialpolitik / German Economic Association.
    17. Tsuchiya, Yoichi, 2016. "Assessing macroeconomic forecasts for Japan under an asymmetric loss function," International Journal of Forecasting, Elsevier, vol. 32(2), pages 233-242.
    18. Hassan Naqvi, 2014. "IMF Conditionality and the Intertemporal Allocation of Resources," International Review of Finance, International Review of Finance Ltd., vol. 14(2), pages 203-235, June.
    19. Johanna Amberger & Ralf Fendel, 2017. "Understanding inflation dynamics in the Euro Area: deviants and commonalities across member countries," Empirica, Springer;Austrian Institute for Economic Research;Austrian Economic Association, vol. 44(2), pages 261-293, May.
    20. Dieter Smeets & Marco Zimmermann, 2013. "Did the EU Summits Succeed in Convincing the Markets during the Recent Crisis?," Journal of Common Market Studies, Wiley Blackwell, vol. 51(6), pages 1158-1177, November.

    More about this item

    Keywords

    COVID-19 pandemic; fiscal stimulus; macro-financial measures; economic policy;
    All these keywords.

    JEL classification:

    • E60 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - General
    • E62 - Macroeconomics and Monetary Economics - - Macroeconomic Policy, Macroeconomic Aspects of Public Finance, and General Outlook - - - Fiscal Policy; Modern Monetary Theory
    • O40 - Economic Development, Innovation, Technological Change, and Growth - - Economic Growth and Aggregate Productivity - - - General

    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:pra:mprapa:108447. 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: Joachim Winter (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://edirc.repec.org/data/vfmunde.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.