How Biased Are U.S. Government Forecasts of the Federal Debt?

Government debt and forecasts thereof attracted considerable attention during the recent financial crisis. The current paper analyzes potential biases in different U.S. government agencies’ one-year-ahead forecasts of U.S. gross federal debt over 1984—2012. Standard tests typically fail to detect biases in these forecasts. However, impulse indicator saturation (IIS) detects economically large and highly significant time-varying biases, particularly at turning points in the business cycle. These biases do not appear to be politically related. IIS defines a generic procedure for examining forecast properties; it explains why standard tests fail to detect bias; and it provides a mechanism for potentially improving forecasts.

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OTHER WHITEPAPERS
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How Do Sovereign Wealth Funds Invest? With Strategic Diversification

whitePaper | April 30, 2022

Sovereign Wealth Funds (SWFs) remain a prominent and diverse group of global asset owners. They represent unencumbered fiscal resources of the host governments, invested under a range of different mandates. In this study, we considered 34 of the largest SWFs, located in 26 different jurisdictions, which as of year-end 2020, have total assets of almost $8.5 trillion, representing 5% of total global markets.2 Between 2018 and 2020, total SWF assets under management (AUM) grew by an annualized 11.3%, as compared to 5.5% over the previous time period (Figure 1). We find that the acceleration in AUM growth is largely a function of market gains due to the post-2018 drawdown in equities. However, we estimate that organic inflows into global SWF holdings are roughly in line with the mid-single digits during the 2014–2018 time period.

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Sustaining and Scaling Civic and Government Technology: A White Paper on Challenges, Best Practices and Recommendations

whitePaper | March 17, 2023

The International Republican Institute (IRI) is one of the world’s leading international democracy development organizations. The nonpartisan, nongovernmental institute has supported civil society organizations, journalists, democratic governments and other democratic actors in more than 100 countries since 1983—in Africa, Asia, Eurasia, Europe, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa—with a current presence in over 70 and working in over 100. Through its global support network to advance digital democracy initiatives, IRI provides capacity building trainings to strengthen grassroots actors’ ability to launch, sustain and scale digital democracy projects; and supports civictech and govtech projects around the world.

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Repurposing Government Spectrum for Licensed Commercial Use: A Win-Win for Wireless Providers and Federal Agencies

whitePaper | August 11, 2020

The federal government is the United States’ largest spectrum user. This is no surprise given the multitude of federal missions, from defending the nation to air traffic control to everyday agency communications. Federal communications systems, however, often rely on decades-old wireless technologies, have limited capabilities, and are less spectrally efficient.

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Delivering Government Solutions in the 21st Century Organization Design Principles and Recommendations

whitePaper | January 21, 2020

When America’s Founders wrote the Constitution, they laid out a clear vision for the United States Government: to establish justice, ensure domestic tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty. Moreover, they established Executive Branch organizations and structures to deliver on the Federal mission in ways appropriate to America’s needs at the time. Over successive generations, our Federal Government has evolved by expanding in scope and complexity to try to meet Americans’ needs. However, the organizational structures that underpin the Executive Branch have not always kept pace.

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2020 federal agenda

whitePaper | March 9, 2020

Our federal funding and policy priorities for the coming year reflect our public mission and our commitment to the public good, which are inextricably linked to the University’s historical partnership with the U.S. government. The federal government’s longstanding pledge to invest in research empowers the UW to bridge the gap between curiosity and research-driven discovery and is critical to the health and economic competitiveness of our nation. From regenerative medicine to cleanenergy technologies, new knowledge for a better world is the driving force behind what we do. Support from the federal establishment is critical to ensuring that our positive impact continues.

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Augmented government Transforming government services through augmented reality

whitePaper | January 27, 2020

On September 27, 1998, football fans who tuned in to watch the game between the Baltimore Ravens and the Cincinnati Bengals witnessed much more than a 31-24 Bengal win. That Sunday, ESPN introduced a technological inno-vation that would forever change the way fans watch sports: a thin yellow line overlaid onto live video representing the distance required for a first down.

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