Back at the beginning of 2021 inflation was not even a blip on the horizon. Average forecasts for the year were 'no change'. Economists and central banks forecast inflation at 2.2% in the US, 1.5% in the UK. The outturn was three times this level in each case, the highest since the inflation crises of the 70s and 80s , threatening growth and living standards. Now the same folk are forecasting falls for 2022. But have we any reason to take this any more seriously than last year's wildly mistaken prediction?
Should we give up on the idea that economics is a science and instead see predictions as politically motivated or exercises in wish fulfillment? Can our economic models be refined so that they deliver accurate predictions of the future? Or is there something essential about mathematical economic models that makes them incapable of predicting the unexpected?