EconAir

INTRODUCTION   This essay introduces some considerations about using forecasting as a tool of corporate planning. It discusses some of the issues. It is not a tutorial to make you an econometrician but to give you some background to evaluate forecasts.   How economic variables are forecasted depends on the time-period forecasted, what is being forecasted, and why the forecast is made. It also depends on the past and present data available.   It is important to remember that any forecast is uncertain. There is a range of uncertainty that maybe can be estimated, or maybe not. Keep this in mind when reading about  any forecasted number.     Data . Forecasts and decisions are based on data. Just because the data are numbers does not mean they are accurate. There may be defects in the past data. There may be definitional problems, data collection problems, data summary problems, and data analysis problems.   Before you start, analyze the data, for example, ...

EconAir is an economics and political blog containing about 200 essays and posts written mostly by Bennett Greenberg, a retired professor of economics with experience teaching across the full undergraduate economics curriculum as well as related disciplines such as economic history, business strategy, finance, and political economy. Experience includes economist and corporate planning manager for three S&P 500 companies, consultant to small businesses, brokering a large acquisition, managing director of a small company, and board member of five nonprofits. Since retirement, also interested in political and economic lessons from history. The central theme of this blog is that innovation and information are the driving forces of economic development, economic growth, competition, and market structure. Modern capitalism is best understood as a dynamic process, not a static system of markets tending toward some hypothetical equilibrium. The Industrial and Digital Rev...

Famous Headline     Before You Begin If you don't know the background of this complicated story, you might want to first read a shorter version that introduces some of the key factors explaining the Crash and the Depression. See,   Introduction to the Stock Market Crash of 1929 and the Beginning of the Great Depression     Before reading this essay, I strongly recommend you see the PBS video on YouTube. Type in Stock Market Crash 1929. Look for: US – The Crash of 1929 (PBS), ALLHISTORIES – PLAYLIST.  The documentary is broken into 6 parts to show commercials. Or buy the video on Amazon Prime. Great documentary with wonderful photos, videos, and scenes from movies of the 1920s and the crash. Shows what a crazy time it was.   The video is also a great introduction to Andrew Ross Sorkin's recent best-seller  1929:  Inside the Greatest Crash in Wall Street History - and How It Shattered a Nation.  This book concentrates on the roles played b...