Changes in economic growth forecasts in the eurozone, Germany, the USA and Japan for 2001 and 2002

Robust world economic growth of 4.7% was achieved in 2000. At the beginning of 2001, international and private institutions were predicting only a modest slowing for 2001 and 2002. The most important factor was to have been an expected slackening of growth in the USA connected with the end of the boom. However, during the course of 2001, and even before September's terrorist attacks on the USA, some institutions started making significant downward revisions to their growth estimates. With unfavourable reports proliferating, a growing number of forecasts started mentioning the risk of a global recession. The following tables summarise the GDP forecasts for the eurozone, Germany, the USA and Japan for 2001 and 2002. For greater representativeness, the selected institutions encompass international institutions (IMF, OECD), supranational institutions (ECB, European Commission), investment banks and other private corporations.

TABLE 1: GDP PREDICTIONS FOR THE EUROZONE
(GDP growth in 2000: 3,5 %)

TABLE 2: GDP PREDICTIONS FOR GERMANY

(GDP growth in 2000: 3 %)

TABLE 3: GDP PREDICTIONS FOR THE USA

(GDP growth in 2000: 4,1 %)

TABLE 4: GDP PREDICTIONS FOR JAPAN

(GDP growth in 2000: 1,5%)

Note: IMF, OECD and Consensus Economics forecasts are given for all countries. Other institutions have been selected according to their regional specialisation or the availability of a forecast time series for the selected period. Since the institutions revise their forecasts with varying periodicity, the second column contains the months in which the forecasts were released. The subsequent columns contain the original and revised forecasts of annual GDP growth for 2001 and 2002 and the percentage-point change in the revised forecast relative to the original forecast.