Forecast Evaluation Report October 2012

Download or read book Forecast Evaluation Report October 2012 written by Office for Budget Responsibility and published by The Stationery Office. This book was released on 2012-10-16 with total page 108 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: This report sets out how the economy and the public finances have evolved since the beginning of 2010 and examines how this evolution compares to the forecasts published by the OBR at the time of the Coalition's first budget in June 2010 and subsequently. In this year's report the key question to address is why the OBR over estimated the pace of economic growth so significantly since the autumn of 2010 whilst public sector borrowing has fallen no more slowly than expected? The underestimation of economic growth reflects several factors: the impact of stubborn inflation on real consumer spending; deteriorating export markets; impaired credit conditions; euro area anxiety and demand uncertainly for business investment. Public sector net borrowing, on the other hand, fell much as expected. The public finances have been buoyed by the resilience of cash spending and the labour market, while local and central government have spent less on public services and administration than budgeted. Individual chapters cover: the economy; the public finances; conclusions and lessons to be learned. Annexes contain the decomposition of fiscal forecast errors and comparison with past official forecasts.