So it is just a consensus opinion of a self selected group of individuals...
Why so skeptical, Joe? Here's the committee:
"Committee members are: Robert Hall, Stanford University (chair); Martin Feldstein, Harvard University and NBER President Emeritus; Jeffrey Frankel, Harvard University; Robert Gordon, Northwestern University; James Poterba, MIT and NBER President; David Romer, University of California, Berkeley; and Victor Zarnowitz, the Conference Board. Christina Romer of the University of California, Berkeley, resigned from the committee on November 25, 2008, and did not participate in its deliberations of November 28."
wwwdev.nber.org
Seems like a distinguished and mainstream list. Even though their "call" is a year after the fact, it's still in advance of a reported 2nd Q of negative GDP. |
