Sudan: 10 times in a row the IMF raised its inflation forecast for 2020 and still fell short
Sudan: inflation in 2020
12 editions from April 2015 to October 2020; the last forecast: 141.6%. The forecast caught up in steps.
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Twice a year, in April and October, the IMF publishes forecasts for several years ahead. The same year is forecast by a dozen editions in a row; here you can see how the expectation for 2020 changed until the year came.
Across: when each forecast was published. Blue, what the IMF expected for 2020 in each edition (April and October); orange, the outcome in the latest data. The shading is the error each edition still carried.
- 2020: forecast in April 2015 → latest data
5.2% → 163.3%
IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2015 → IMF World Economic Outlook, April 2026
- Run of revisions: 10 in a row
5.2% (IMF, Oct 2015) → 141.6% (IMF, Oct 2020)
- The last forecast before the outcome
141.6% (IMF, Oct 2020)
Forecasts for 2020 from every World Economic Outlook edition in which it was still a forecast, against the IMF’s latest data (April 2026). A run is consecutive revisions in one direction larger than 0.05 pp; smaller changes neither break nor extend it.
Staircases are a known feature of forecasts: new information is taken in piecemeal, and revisions run the same way for many editions. It shows across many countries and years; the card does not say why this particular forecast missed.
A question for this picture
If every new forecast moves the same way, what does the next one tell you about the future?