So far, our analysis has focused on forecasts made in early 2010, when a number of large fiscal consolidation plans were announced. But it is worth examining whether the relation also holds for forecasts made in other years. We start by examining forecasts made in all years since the start of the crisis (2009–12), both jointly and individually. This exercise has the advantage of raising the sample size to 105 observations, up from the 26 observations in our baseline sample. Then, we consider forecasts made in more normal times—the precrisis decade (1997–2008). For this precrisis sample, our expectation is that.
