Scott Schuh (2001) - An Evaluation of Recent Macroeconomic Forecast Errors, Boston Fed

Despite a significant decline in the pace of economic growth in the second half of 2000, macroeconomic forecasters underpredicted real GDP growth and overpredicted the unemployment rate by a significant amount, for the fifth consecutive year. On average, real GDP forecasts were about 2 percentage points below the actual data for the
1996--2000 period, and unemployment rate forecasts about 0.5 percentage point above. On a more positive note, forecasters ended their chronic overprediction of inflation during much of this period. Nevertheless, surprisingly
large and persistent errors in recent forecasts of GDP, inflation, and unemployment have perplexed macroeconomists and policymakers for quite some time, and they merit closer examination.1