Accuracy of Projections
- Report
Answers to Questions for the Record Following a Hearing on the Oversight of CBO
The House Committee on the Budget convened a hearing at which Phillip L. Swagel, CBO's Director, testified about the work of CBO. This document provides CBO’s answers to questions submitted for the record.
- Report
Testimony on the Accuracy of CBO’s Recent Baseline Projections
CBO Director Phillip Swagel testifies before the House Committee on the Budget.
- Report
The Accuracy of CBO’s Budget Projections for Fiscal Year 2023
In its May 2022 projections for fiscal year 2023, CBO overestimated revenues by 11 percent and underestimated outlays by 9 percent. CBO’s projection of the federal deficit for 2023 was less than the actual amount by 3.9 percent of GDP.
- Working Paper
Conditional Forecasting With a Bayesian Vector Autoregression: Working Paper 2023-08
This paper describes how CBO uses a Bayesian vector autoregression method to generate alternative economic projections to the agency’s baseline.
- Presentation
How CBO Projects Corporate Income Tax Revenues
CBO describes how it projects corporate income tax revenues, focusing on how it maps economic projections of corporate profits to projections of the corporate income tax base.
- Presentation
How CBO Acquires Data, Evaluates Its Estimates, and Makes Its Work Transparent
Presentation by Mark Hadley, CBO's Chief Operating Officer and General Counsel, for an annual seminar of the European Centre for Parliamentary Research and Documentation.
- Report
An Evaluation of CBO’s Projections of Outlays From 1984 to 2021
In this report, CBO uses various measures to assess the quality of its past projections of federal outlays. The analysis focuses on three fiscal years within each projection period: the budget year, the 6th year, and the 11th year.
- Report
CBO Explains How It Develops the Budget Baseline
The Congressional Budget Act of 1974 requires CBO to produce an annual report on federal spending, revenues, and deficits or surpluses. This document provides answers to questions about how CBO prepares those baseline budget projections.
- Report
CBO’s Projections of Federal Health Care Spending
In a letter to Senator Whitehouse, CBO gauges the accuracy of its projections of federal health care spending over time. In 2010, CBO overestimated mandatory spending for health care in its projections for the 2010–2020 period.
- Presentation
CBO’s Projections of Realized Capital Gains Subject to the Individual Income Tax
This slide deck provides additional information about CBO’s February 2023 baseline projections of capital gains realizations, which decrease from an estimated high of 8.7 percent of GDP in 2021 down to 3.7 percent of GDP by 2033.