Worst Forecaster at the Fed

Brad DeLong:

Worst Fed Forecaster: It is quite an accomplishment to both be (a) the worst economic forecaster among your peers, and yet (b) engage in no public reflection and discussion of how and why you got the past wrong, and how you are changing your model of the economy in order to get it less wrong when you forecast in the future.

Charles Plosser has managed that accomplishment.

Those close to him in the WSJ rankings of Fed forecasting success--Bullard, Lacker, Kocherlakota, Williams, and Bernanke--have all discussed, sometimes at great length, what they got wrong, why they think they got it wrong, and what they think they have learned. Not Charles Plosser--at least, nowhere that I have seen. I have not even found any recognition by Charles Plosser that every single year he was President of the Federal Reserve Bank of Philadelphia he did get it wrong, did misjudge the economy, and was recommending monetary policies that would be unduly and inappropriately restrictive. None.