The IMF foresaw 28 of 537 economic downturns around the world a year ahead
2008–2025, April IMF forecasts
Nearly all foreseen downturns were crises already under way (Equatorial Guinea, Venezuela). Even in April of the same year the IMF saw only 57% of them.
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Every April the IMF publishes a forecast of economic growth for all countries for this year and the years ahead. Here are all the years when a country’s economy actually shrank, and for each, what the IMF had expected a year earlier.
By year: blue, the number of countries whose GDP fell (IMF latest data); orange, how many of them the April IMF forecast made a year earlier already showed falling. The peaks are 2009 and 2020.
- Declines in real GDP (growth below zero)
537 (2008–2025)
- Of them, with a fall in the April forecast a year earlier
28 (5%)
- With a fall in the April forecast of the same year
301 of 532 (57%)
- False alarms: a fall expected, growth happened
35 of 2,651
A downturn is a year when a country’s real GDP fell (growth below −0.05%, i.e. −0.1% or less once rounded) in the IMF’s latest data (April 2026). The forecast is the April World Economic Outlook of the year before; “expected a fall” means forecast growth below zero. Countries and years 2008–2025 with both a forecast and an outcome.
Misses the other way are rare too: false alarms (a fall expected, growth happened) numbered 35, against 2,651 years of growth. Forecasts almost never show a downturn in advance. These forecasts did not anticipate the pandemic downturn of 2020 (153 downturns): the 3 matches are countries already in decline. Without 2020: 25 of 384.
A question for this picture
Why do forecasts almost never show a downturn when downturns happen every year?