This workbook allows users to enter an alternative scenario for productivity growth, labor force growth, inflation, or interest rates and see estimates of revenues, several types of spending, and deficits under those scenarios.
Summary
This workbook allows users to define and analyze alternative economic scenarios by entering values for differences between four economic variables—productivity growth (in this workbook, the growth of total factor productivity, which is real output per unit of combined labor and capital services), labor force growth, interest rates, and inflation—and the values for those variables in CBO's April 2018 economic forecast.
The workbook then applies the rules of thumb specified in the report How Changes in Economic Conditions Might Affect the Federal Budget to those values and provides estimates of how revenues, outlays, and deficits under the user-specified scenarios might differ from those in the agency's adjusted April 2018 baseline budget projections. The workbook also shows how economic indicators—including gross domestic product (GDP), real (inflation-adjusted) GDP, and interest rates—might respond under the user-specified scenarios.
The formulas underlying this workbook were created specifically for these interactive tables and are meant only to provide results that approximate those CBO would produce using its broad set of economic and budget models.