{"id":55772,"date":"2021-03-01T07:20:28","date_gmt":"2021-03-01T07:20:28","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/?p=55772"},"modified":"2021-03-01T07:20:28","modified_gmt":"2021-03-01T07:20:28","slug":"the-office-for-budget-responsibility-has-always-been-wildly-over-optimistic-in-its-forecasts-and-is-sticking-to-its-usual-form-now","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/03\/01\/the-office-for-budget-responsibility-has-always-been-wildly-over-optimistic-in-its-forecasts-and-is-sticking-to-its-usual-form-now\/","title":{"rendered":"The Office for Budget Responsibility has always been wildly over-optimistic in its forecasts, and is sticking to its usual form now"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The <a href=\"https:\/\/www.ft.com\/content\/5fde9ff0-dd9f-4fba-b341-33c7788b25e1\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">FT has reported this morning<\/a> that:<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>The UK\u2019s rapid rollout of Covid-19 vaccines will foster a faster economic recovery, requiring fewer tax rises than feared, official Budget forecasts will show this week, as the number of people receiving their first jab passed 20m.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Before anyone gets too excited (the FT is breathless) I should note this chart:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-large wp-image-55738\" src=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screenshot-2021-02-27-at-09.18.59-550x419.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"550\" height=\"419\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screenshot-2021-02-27-at-09.18.59-550x419.png 550w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screenshot-2021-02-27-at-09.18.59-394x300.png 394w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screenshot-2021-02-27-at-09.18.59-768x585.png 768w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screenshot-2021-02-27-at-09.18.59-525x400.png 525w, https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2021\/02\/Screenshot-2021-02-27-at-09.18.59.png 1106w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 550px) 100vw, 550px\" \/><\/p>\n<p>This comes from Andy Haldane\u2019s\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/02\/27\/the-bank-of-england-has-always-been-over-optimistic-about-the-uk-economy-and-it-is-being-dangerously-so-now\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">speech for the Bank of England last Friday<\/a>. What it shows is that the Office for Budget Responsibility, which is the source of the current enthusiastic forecast, has always been wildly over-optimistic in its economic predictions, always (and I mean always) suggesting growth that failed to materialise until Covid came along.<\/p>\n<p>Is this time going to be any different? I very much doubt it.<\/p>\n<p>I suggest taking the forecasts with a lot more sober suspicion than appears possessed by the FT.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The FT has reported this morning that: The UK\u2019s rapid rollout of Covid-19 vaccines will foster a faster economic recovery, requiring fewer tax rises than<br \/><a class=\"moretag\" href=\"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/2021\/03\/01\/the-office-for-budget-responsibility-has-always-been-wildly-over-optimistic-in-its-forecasts-and-is-sticking-to-its-usual-form-now\/\"><em> Read the full article&#8230;<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[127,35,106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-55772","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-budget","category-economics","category-politics"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55772","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=55772"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55772\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55772"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55772"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.taxresearch.org.uk\/Blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55772"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}