Staff papers – Macroeconomics

This note compares over twenty years between 2004 and 2023 the French Government's macroeconomic and public finance forecasts in the initial budget bill with their outcome. In order to evaluate the accuracy of the Government's forecasts, it is also useful to have a basis for comparison at the time the forecast is made: the Government's macroeconomic forecasts are thus compared with those of the Consensus Forecasts in September of each year.

Based on an empirical analysis of consumption behavior since 1950, the report concludes that the surge in inflation since 2021 is responsible for a weak part of the increase in the savings rate compared with 2019, and that this effect should be temporary.